Diminished Value Claim

Dr. Frenchenstein

Has anyone ever done this? any advice? The appraiser is coming on wednesday (2 days) and i can either let him handle the negotiations for 1/3 of the proceeds, or get the paperwork from him, and do it myself. I'm leaning towards letting him do it, b/c the company has been dodging my insurance company for the subrogation claim. i'm sure they wont whip out that checkbook for little old me.

Long story short behind spoiler,

i was rear ended about 3 months ago, did about 10k in damage to my car, including frame. I filed with my insurance agency b/c my car wasn't driveable, and i panicked. they are going through subrogation with the other company and my car is fixed (for the most part, still a check engine light but i'm working that out with the body shop). I took it to CarMax just to see where it stood and their offer would have put me about 6k upside down on my loan. Blue book for perfect condition is 20,500 or so, CarMax offered 11k. needless to say, i want some goddamn money for my trouble.

Bowen

I've seen people do that, I've never heard the outcomes, but it's something like 40% of the value can be cut in a check. So you'd be looking at almost $8200 for that in diminished value? You're still upside down but if you drop that on your loan right now it'll be minimal instead of almost half the car's value.

Edit:

Though after looking on google I've found that you can do the difference for the sale price right now, and charge it to the other person's insurance company, so almost a $9500 DVC.

Dr. Frenchenstein

That would be awesome! I'd be happy with 3-4k at this point to be honest. My car drives fine for now, but i'm betting things will start going wrong in a few years, and i will want to dump it.

I'm in MD by the way, so DV claims are not off the table as far as i know.

WildEEP

A lot of policy's have this specifically excluded in their clauses...so make sure to read all the fine print.

Dr. Frenchenstein

I'm claiming from the other guy, so their policy's wording should be irrelevant.

Bowen

I know NY has them, it's in my insurance policy. It's pretty much a "if you get fucked you're not on the hook for a loan that has no more collateral" clause.

Since this wasn't an "my car is reducing in value faster than my loan" type situation and rather a "my car was T boned by a reckless driver and now it's worth less and I can't resell it for as much as I could normally" you can probably take them to civil court and recoup the losses. It'll likely be the difference between actual resale value for a mint condition, plus how much you can get now that it's repaired, rather than the amount on your loan.

So if carmax gets you $11,000 but its real value is $18000, it'd be the difference between those two. That said, this is all based on what the insurance company/court/lawyer finds.

That said, because I'm sure there's someone here that's going to go "nuh uh, you're not a lawyer" : I am not a lawyer, a doctor, a garbage man, an arbitrator, a judge, a jury, an executioner, nor am I an insurance representative or a piece of paper. Your mileage may vary, or it may not mileage at all.

Dr. Frenchenstein

if this doesn't work, expect a call from my lawyer bowen!

You can get Gap Insurance, which basically says you are covered if your car gets wrecked and you can't pay off the loan with the proceeds. I declined that though. seemed to me like that was a scam.

Bowen

All insurances are scams, pretty much. It just depends how much you are willing to accept loss for. You'd probably have been better off taking $50 a month and slapping it into a bank account.

GAP insurance is good if you drive off the lot and get run over by a semi or something, after the first few years it's practically a way for them to make money off you.

Darkewolfe

I doubt this is helpful to your situation, but:

A friend of mine had his car totaled. It was a real POS car, he had every intention to just drive it into the ground before buying a decent car. The insurance company offered him an amount of money that was probably equal to the value of the car, but which couldn't be used to actually buy anything that you could have faith wouldn't fall apart a week after driving it off the lot. He threatened to force the insurance company to pay repairs, rather than paying value of the car, which would have been 4x the value of the car. They met him in the middle just so they could close the case.