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Car totaled and I'm not at fault. What next? UPDATE: His insurance took the claim
Ardor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Basically, I wake up one morning and find my car 30 feet away from where I parked it, on the curb. I was parked on a one way street, parked legally and the front end is pretty smashed up. It's almost certainly going to be declared a loss. Luckily for me, whoever was driving left behind parts of their bumper and their front license plate. It's very likely this person doesn't have insurance, of course.
So now, I'm likely going to hear back within a few days about what the insurance company will give me in the event my car is totaled and I've never done this before, so would like to ask advice on how to obtain information to help maximize the payout or at least get a reasonable amount back.
I've obtained the police report, reported and gave the other license plate to the police who did not put it in the report. It states I was parked legally, which should protect me from rising insurance premiums. I've been told to look around for similar cars in my area to help compare, along with using the kelly blue book online for a rough estimate. I also recently put $900 into the car and was told to have the receipt handy.
The car was a 2005 honda civic lx, 99,500 miles roughly.
Any advice on other things I should do while I wait to hear their final word?
Thanks for your time.
EDIT: I also took pictures of the accident, sending to the insurance company, also sent them a copy of the police report. I took pictures of the bumper with the license plate of the car I assumed hit me, sent to both the police and my insurance and the police came to pick up the bumper + license plate that wasn't mine. I'm at the point where the insurance company told me they have what they need from me.
So now, I'm likely going to hear back within a few days about what the insurance company will give me in the event my car is totaled and I've never done this before, so would like to ask advice on how to obtain information to help maximize the payout or at least get a reasonable amount back.
I've obtained the police report, reported and gave the other license plate to the police who did not put it in the report. It states I was parked legally, which should protect me from rising insurance premiums. I've been told to look around for similar cars in my area to help compare, along with using the kelly blue book online for a rough estimate. I also recently put $900 into the car and was told to have the receipt handy.
The car was a 2005 honda civic lx, 99,500 miles roughly.
Any advice on other things I should do while I wait to hear their final word?
Thanks for your time.
EDIT: I also took pictures of the accident, sending to the insurance company, also sent them a copy of the police report. I took pictures of the bumper with the license plate of the car I assumed hit me, sent to both the police and my insurance and the police came to pick up the bumper + license plate that wasn't mine. I'm at the point where the insurance company told me they have what they need from me.
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- Get a police report (Check). Although in some jurisdictions the police will likely say things like "well we aren't supposed to be called for when someone does damage on a private road or for less than x dollars...." Don't listen to that. Most insurance companies want this because it gives a neutral understanding of what has occurred.
- Contact the insurance company (Check). You've already done this so you are good
- Ask your neighbors if they saw anything, it is likely they haven't but if you want to try and win a civil suit [a small claims suit] against the driver that hit your car, you have to know who hit your car, talking to neighbors is a good way to do that.
- Call the insurance agent back in a couple days to see what the status of the case is. They may tell you to go to a dealer that does business with the insurance company to have the car repaired or to get an estimate for the repairs they are going to cover.
- This is where insurance diverges: they may just cut you a check for the estimated costs of the repairs OR they will ask you to get the current car fixed and offer to cover the costs.
- Contact the police officer who did the report and ask if he/she has any information about who may have hit your car. It is unlikely the officer will know, but in the off chance he/she does, you can then use that information to file a small claims suit against the driver who hit your car (This isn't likely to happen)
Hope this helps. It looks like you've done everything right so far, just make sure to stay on top of your insurance company and things should turn out all right.
your own insurer will likely appreciate not having to deplete their own monies and be able to claim against the other driver's insurance, assuming he or she has any. if the other driver isn't insured, then no harm done.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
I'm really just waiting to hear back on what they plan on doing with my car. I'm assuming they will try to get this person to pay before they write me a check, but I've not dealt with insurance companies much over things beyond window replacements.
Look up your car on KBB.com. If you've had any recent work done like tires or brakes or anything, be sure to let the insurance know. Also check that they got all the security/safety features of your car - airbags, etc.
They can send you check from your insurance, then try to get the money. Good news is you can go shopping sooner, bad news is it's going through your insurance. Ideally you would buy a new car on your own, then deposit the money they get from the other driver; that may not be an option though.
I have uninsured and underinsured motorists bodily injury, if that's what you're referencing.
Your insurance company is likely going to handle most of the headache for you, that is why you pay them. Just wait to hear back from them and then see if that cottons to what you want done.
What is your goal here? do you want money for the accident or do you want the car to be restored?
Ultimately, I'm going under the assumption that the car will be totaled and I'll have to figure out what I can get from my insurance. worst case scenario is, they have no coverage (other driver) and I'm going to deal with my insurance for a check and I'd like to see what I can to do help increase the amount I get from them. I know I can't simply tell them, "No that isn't enough", I have to provide information as to why I want more.
This won't affect my premiums and I figure if I can do an hour or two of work to find a way to increase what I get from this to replace my car, it is worth the time.
I still think it might be worth your time to go to small claims court, and file damages for the 900 dollars you spent on the car. You won't need a lawyer, just proof that you spent the money (which you have) and a person to sue, sounds like you got both. It might also help you make up any losses that the insurance company doesn't cover.
I could be wrong here, but I was under the impression that the insurance company sues the uninsured guy for damages, and not the motorist.
I thought the insurance company cuts you a check, then they go after the guy/girl that hit you, and if there's any further medical damage or anything then that's what the motorist can sue for.
In any case, it's not like even winning a suit against the uninsured motorist would get you instant money unless he/she happens to be loaded, and more than likely if they're uninsured and fled the scene then they're potentially going to jail, for at least a short while, in which case you won't see a dime until they get released.
As for the insurance company, it depends. Sometimes they sue, but in this case they are dealing with an uninsured motorist they might not think it is worth the money for the lawyer to get involved. They might sue the guy on his behalf and cut a check, or force him to do the legwork and price check everything and fail to sue, meaning that OP could get screwed by his own insurance company by under compensating. In that case, a small claims suit might help recover the difference between actual price and what the insurance company pays out.
NADA would be a better source to use as its one that if you bring up with your insurance company they'll know it right away
http://www.nada.com/
Many insurance companies actually use NADA for coming up with numbers so its a good addition to KBB. Of course your not going to get KBB value because theres a number of factors that go into the grading of vehicles and blah blah blah. Toss a NADA pricing out and theres a bit less to be told off on.
Got the agent to send me their report on my car, and a list of vehicles they used for comparison. Of course they picked all the ones for sale by the shadiest of shady car lots.
American Family uses NADA quite heavily to find prices so its a very good source to go "car same mileage and condition for xxx two towns over" and your usually going to get a bit more give rather then saying "KBB says its worth xxxxxx"
UPDATE: The other driver does have insurance and his insurance is picking up the rental car and the claim. Now I have to negotiate with their total loss adjuster. So to make sure I'm not getting the bad end of the stick, I wanted to see if you guys have advice for me on how to do this.
So I had a 2005 honda civic lx 4 door sedan, 99,700 miles. KBB retail price says $10,040 for excellent condition. NADA suggests $8,975.
So they came to me with something around the KBB private seller value for good condition, which is much less than I was hoping to get and it's not going to put me into anything remotely comparable to me previous vehicle. I also sent them a $900 repair bill from January and they added a little more to my claim, like another $100.
So, I return, I told them I would need more money to be able to get a comparable vehicle and listed 2 vehicles that are in the area and their prices. I used cars.com and found a few salvage titles, but two similar cars otherwise. A 2005 manual version of my car with 91,382 miles for $9,999 and mentioned KBB values the automatic version at +$465. I also found another 2005 honda civic EX with 91,753 miles for $10,998 and KBB values my car at +$200 compared to it.
They also gave me their report which utilized 6 authorized dealerships with their pricing on the cars. Then they adjusted the price of the cars based upon mileage and options, averaged them out and gave me their proposed settlement. So I went to the website of each of those dealers and looked for comparable cars. Only one of them was a honda dealer and 4 of them including the honda dealer did not have comparable cars. I looked for a car that was between 2003-2007 and was a honda civic. For the two dealerships that did have somewhat similar vehicles, I quoted their prices and using their KBB private party value, showed the differences between them and after calculating tax and adding rough estimates for title, license and other fees, I told them I'm looking for KBB retail value.
I also asked my insurance company if they'd be willing to help with negotiations in any way, shape or form and they said they will not because both companies use third party total loss adjusters, so it would probably be the same.
So if they come back with another low settlement, in my opinion, should I try to negotiate with them more? Is there anything else I can do?
For what it's worth, it sounds like the scrap estimate for my car is around $1,700.
Thanks for any advice you might have for me.
It was also suggested to me that I get an attorney. If this guy has insurance, he probably has a job and is respectable to some degree, so I could probably recoup costs through him as well.
Assume about $1,000 for paperwork, though they (insurance) should refund you the cost of all or near all of it, plus any city/state stickers that you had on your car; so if you need new plates, they'll pay for that separate from the car offer.
Can you get the paperwork from the insurance of what cars they're looking at? I went back and forth with my guy, and got to bump up here & there - a little for the windshield; they said it looked cracked before accident, I disagreed, I sent repair bill like you did, etc.
I ended up with about $8,500 for a 2005 Corolla. Most were listed for around $10k. It was pretty obvious from the get-go that the best option would be to buy a new one for another 3 or 4k tops, but that wasn't available at the time. Settled on a 2008 Accent, with ABS, 4 airbags, 40k miles for an extra $1,000.
Long story long, look at other brands like a 2008 or newer Hyundai, or would go with 90k or less miles for Honda/Toyota. Be careful with private, as they may have put off doing regular maintenance as the clock ticks up.
edit: Also, you can certainly try the legal route, but after talking to my lawyer uncle, he said it's pretty tight, unless I wanted to go the option mentioned above.
The adjuster came back and said it is non-negotiable. So I looked into my options. I talked to the family attorney for his thoughts on it, would it be worth it. He said you'd probably win, but it's probably not worth your time or money for what you'd get out of it. I talked to my insurance company and they said I'd have to reject their claim and I could go through them.
So what I ended up doing was rejecting the claim and will go through my insurance company. They should be more willing to help me out than his and I still do not owe a deductible. I just have to see what they will offer now and negotiate with them.