insurance companies

one day i had my wagon parked on the street and someone pulled out of the driveway accross the street and backed into my wagon and caving the rear quarter a good amount but fixable.anyway she had insurance and i was ok.well the adjuster came and tooks pics and left.the next day i get a call from the insurance company asking my if i have the title of the car.i replied yes but why.they claim the damage was 1600 dollars and the car is only worth 450 so it will be totaled and we will have to take the car.
man talk about me blowing my stack.i told the agent not no but hell no you are not going to take me car .your insured driver hit my car and i want it fixed.in the end i got to keep my car and a 1600 dollar check and i fixed the car my self .
what i cant understand is where in the hell do these companies get there info saying my cherry wagon is only worth 450.?????

 

They get it right out of the used car books. Seems those books haven't caught ip to the rarer stuff yet. All they see is that it is an old car.

 

Or the agent's wife needed a parts car... Why would having the title affect their settlement terms? I'm Canuck, so having the title goes without saying.

 

Insurance companies are crooks, that is all there is to it. They would be more then happy to give you a check for $1150($1600 - $450 for the value of the car) so you can keep it. They try that scam first, but if you play hardball, they have no choice but to cave in eventually.

 

You actually have more "power" when it's the other driver's insurance. With your own insurance you have a signed contract that will usually dictate what they will pay and how they come up with the figure unless you have agreed value insurance. You have to stick to your guns when it comes to settlements.

 

Half the time I feel like insurance companies are barely a step above organized crime.
They are all too happy to have one-way cash flow.

I don't know where they got the $450 figure either. Out of their ***?
From the NADA site (without checking any of the option boxes)
1976 Plymouth Gran Fury 4 Door Station Wagon
Low retail: $2,250

I was blown away when I saw the NADA value on my wagon. Way more than I expected.
Low retail: $7,140
(almost the same as the original sticker price)

 

Steve they always take the price and divide it in 1/2 then subtract the damage from that. I was rear ended a few years ago in my camary wagon they only wanted to pay me 350 for the car. I raised hell and got 1500.

 

This is why I have insurance with Grundy. it is an agreed amount policy. If anything happens they pay up to that amount. And it's cheap. But It must be garaged, I have to have a daily driver, and be over 26. We have it on both out cars.

 

I wonder how many times they actually convince some poor person to give them their car and end up with almost nothing.
Some little old lady would have probably just accepted what a person in percieved authority said, and just rolled over, giving up the car and any claim.

David

 

Yes, but does this apply when the other driver is at fault? In derby0187's case, he wasn't dealing with his own insurance company, he was dealing with the insurer of the guy who hit his car.

I have collector car insurance on my cars as well, and I've often wondered about this. If a tree falls on my car and totals it, I get the "agreed" value from my insurance company, right? If I'm driving it to a car show and a I run it into a ditch and total it, I get the agreed value, right? But if I'm sitting at a stop light on my way to a car show and somebody rear-ends me, I'm dealing with THEIR insurance company, not mine. Then who gets to decide the car's value?

 

insurance companys dont care whats done to it or not. theyre just readind whats in the KBB. my wagon in the KBB is only worth 510 dollars, which sucks but my insureance agent told me to get a apraisl (sp) done because they cant go off of anything but the blue book price. it sucks thou

im gettin ready to get Collector car insurance for the monte carlo.... all u have to do is take pics of the car and the garage its in and it MUST BE in a garage before they can do anything check out the website.


www.collectorcarins.com

 

But you're talking about a standard insurance policy here, not a collector car policy. What you say is true for any auto insurance policy from any company. If insurance companies allowed people to set whatever value they wanted for a car, they open themselves up to fraud. If you want to insure for a specific value, you have to go the collector car insurance route.

And this is the difference. If you want a specified value policy, you must meet all these restrictions. You can't get a policy like this on your '83 because it's a daily driver.

I do have one quick question for you. You say you're getting a collector car policy on your '86. I was under the impression that most collector car insurance policies require the car to be at least 25 years old, and your '86 isn't quite there yet. Does this company allow younger cars to be insured as collector cars? The website (which is a bit amateurish with the "gallery" showing nothing but broken links) doesn't say.

 

Lol the 86 is nothing but a show car my friend, which i dont drive it but on weekends so they put it under some type of CCI which i forgot the name of it. everything i clicked on worked just fine for me and besides my neighbor brought it to my attention about that company anways ....... as far as the 83 goes yeah its a daily driver the appraisal quote was mainly for the monte carlo but however if u got a old car type like was the OP then i said get it appraised and not go off of the book value

 

Yes, but what does an appraiser do but go by book values and then make additions and subtractions based on the pluses and minuses of the particular car he's looking at?

The best source of info on a car's value is what similar cars have sold for recently. How many '83 Malibu wagons with modifications like yours have sold recently? How many '86 Monte Carlo's have sold recently? An appraiser might have to look far and wide to find data like this. This is where the price guides come in as they have this info nationally. Again, what they have are averages, and any particular car will be worth more or less based on circumstances. But I wouldn't expect an appraiser's value to be too much different from the averages.

Go there right now, click on "Gallery" at the top of the page, and all you get are a bunch of blank squares. Click on any of the squares, and you get a "page not found" error.

 

oh well ill do what i wanna do... an ad far as the page error thing doesnt come up on my computer.. i see bunch of pics of cars sucks u cant see that ....