Update about my wrecked car.

[Dave-O]

I like that fix.

[lmwii]

Moreover, they are required by federal law to settle all open claims by the end of their fiscal year.

must not be true in virginia, as my father has had a claim open for 3 years with allstate.

[UlrichWolf]

must not be true in virginia, as my father has had a claim open for 3 years with allstate.

 

You need an attorney.

 

Tim

[PDX87Starion]

Dont worry about estimates and repairs right now. First you need to agree on a value for your car.

You need do some work to get the value up. You need to send them all your reciets, plus send them a list of what other nice SQ's are selling for.

 

Now even if you were gonna paint it the next day, they dont owe you the value of a nice SQ with new paint, they owe you for a SQ that needed a paint job. So you need to supply them with estimates of how much it would have cost you (or a shop) to paint that side. You also need to let them know your a semi pro painter. Then hopefully they can deduct that cost from what the value would be if you had painted it just before the accident.

 

Once you get the value up and agree, to say $4000, they might want to fix it (minus paint) instead of totaling it. If they still want to total it out, you still can take a lower amount (the max they would pay to fix it. usually 80% of its value) and keep the car to fix yourself without having a branded "totaled" title.

 

 

Basicaly this is what happened with my wifes vr6 jetta. They said its worth $1200 so its totaled. I said no its a GLX vr6 with leather its worth $5000. They eventually agreed the value was $4500. Now that the value was more its not an automatic total. The repair estimate was under the value. Long story short we kept the car and after the deductable we got a check for like $2800. Could have gotten more if they totalled it, but I fixed it and its on the road still with a clean title.

 

PS anytime an insurance adjuster gives you an estimate for repairs, its always gonna be half of what it will really cost. After its in the shop, the shop will bill the insurance as a "suppliment" for the rest. They do this because some people will just cash the check and not fix the car. This makes it tough if you want to fix it yourself because you cant do a "suppliment" only body shops can.

Edited May 10, 2010 by PDX87Starion