Totalled my car.

mystic_knight

So I totalled my car today. Basically, I'd like to find out how much I'll be getting from my insurance. It's a 2000 Ford Mustang. I tried using kelley blue book, but I didn't know which value to go by. There's dealership, private and trade-in. I'm really hoping it's not he trade in value, as it hardly covers the deductable.

Zyre

Depends entirely on what type of insurance you carried. Full coverage or basic liability? If it is full coverage, they will make you an offer based on blue book value. If you accept the offer, they will issue a check and then they own and take possession of the vehicle, where they will get whatever money they can out of it by selling it for parts and scrap.

I totalled a 1998 Kia Sephia 4 years ago and if I remember correctly; I had full coverage as it is required by law if you had a lean on the car, I still owed $1700 on the car. I don't remember what my parents initially paid for the car, I just took over the payments when I took the car and moved out, I think it was just under 10,000. The value of my car at the time of the accident was valued at around $1900-2000. The check I got from the insurance was just enough to pay off the bank and pay my last months insurance bill.

After all was said and done, I had no more car but also no more debt until I bought my truck (2001 Ford Ranger XLT) a month later and went into 13-14k of debt. But hey, it's 4 years later now and I have it paid off and managed not to total it while I owed money.

mystic_knight

I have full coverage. My main problem is that with the blue book they have 3 prices: trade-in, private, and retail. On a 2000 Ford Mustang, trade-in is $1,250 and retail is about $6,250. Blue book's site said to expect about the average of retail and trade-in, which would be about $3,750. Some places I looked at said to check out NADA, and the price NADA has for the car is about $4000, which is close to the average of the two blue book prices. I think about $4,000 is what I should expect, but I'm really confused about which number I should be looking at. Some other sites said that I'd get the average of what a comparable vehicle around my area would cost, which is around $5000.

I'm just pretty stressed out about getting enough cash to get another car.

japan

UK perspective here, I don't know if the US system works the same way. The UK guide is called Glass's, which similarly breaks down values into Retail, Private, and Trade.

Unless you're a motor trader (ie. you buy and sell vehicles as part of a business) Pre-accident valuations are based on the Glass's Retail figure, corrected for mileage and any pre-existing damage. Note that you will not necessarily get enough money to replace your car. What you will likely get is the amount that someone would have paid (which is distinct from the sticker price) for the car that's wrecked, were it to hypothetically be on a dealer's forecourt.

In any case, the insurer should be able to tell you how they arrived at any figure they offer you, and your best bet for disputing that figure is by providing evidence that they've made some kind of unreasonable deduction, or that the guide price isn't representative of the true value of the car (Note that in my experience it is exceptionally rare for anyone to successfully argue the latter. The only time I'm aware of it occurring was for a vehicle that was factory-modified as a "1 of 200" special edition).

mystic_knight

Alright. I was really worried about only getting the trade-in value. Since it was only $1250, I'd only get $250 back after the deductible and I still have a ticket to pay, as well.

LaOs

In Saskatchewan (figured another perspective couldn't hurt), Insurance goes out and finds the for-sale price of all the vehicles similar to yours that are for sale in a reasonable area. I forget what that area was--it might have been most of the province. Anyway, in your case, they'd go and find all the Mustangs in your reasonable area that are for sale with the 2000 model year and mileage similar to yours and another other major defects yours may have had. They find the average selling/asking price from all these and that's what they offer you.

So, you could end up near that $5,000 figure you mentioned.

Dalboz

I got KBB retail on my '93 Nissan Altima when it was killed last year. The bigger question is how did you total the car? Did you hit someone, or did they hit you? If someone hit you, then their insurance company is the one that needs to pay up. Also, anticipate some pain that sets in later (it happened to me; it took a full 24-48 hours before I felt EVERYTHING, and that's when I realized that I wasn't in as good a shape as I thought I was when walked out of the accident). So, if you wind up missing work and having medical bills, the insurance company is obligated to cover that, too, especially with full coverage. Don't let them jerk you around they way they did with me. I tried handling it on my own, and it was pretty cut and dry (the other person rear-ended me; automatically it was 100% their fault), but they tried to give me the run around about things anyway and wound up forcing me to hire a lawyer to deal with them, even though I tried to avoid that.

TexiKen

KBB has, for the last few months, been lower in price than the going rate for used cars in all areas (trade in, retail, private seller). It mainly has to do with gas prices dropping like a rock and used car sales being higher since the beginning of the year (people are paying cash for used cars more than financing a new car). After CARS is over with the prices might go even higher.

Vladimir7

Just for your info you CAN negotiate the price you get assuming there is reason to do so.
When my car was totaled a few years back they were only going to give me 8K. I still had 9k owing on it.
I had very little mileage on it (about 1/2 of what would be considered normal since I worked 4 min away from my house)
I also looked at auto trader for what used ones were going for for the same model.
So going back to them with the proof, I ended up getting 10k instead.
So the couple hours of researching paid off.

Basically, if you have full coverage, you should be getting what it would cost you to go into a used car dealership, and pick up your exact car with similar mileage on it minus your deductible.
You just can't be greedy, the adjuster will know if you are trying to pull a fast one. So do research, and have a hard copy of your research to provide to the adjuster if they think you are full of shit.

TK-42-1

Remember that the insurance companies are the enemy. Dont tell them any more than you have to. Neither person's insurance adjuster wants to give you money. Just keep that in mind when you are talking to these people.

japan

TK-42-1 wrote: »

Remember that the insurance companies are the enemy. Dont tell them any more than you have to. Neither person's insurance adjuster wants to give you money. Just keep that in mind when you are talking to these people.

Actually, if your claim is being dealt with by the other guy's insurer, they will quite frequently fall over themselves to help you. They're on the hook for the costs anyway, the best outcome they can hope for is that they impress you enough to switch your insurance to them next time you renew.

Also failing to disclose relevant information is just as fraudulent as actively lying as far as the law's concerned

Sir Carcass

Back in 2003 I totaled a 1994 Camry. Their insurance offered me about $4000. We found some online listings in our area of people selling that same car for about $6000 and were able to negotiate him up to $5500. That included P&S, but the original offer did as well. Basically, you should get about what it would cost to replace the car. If you feel you're getting screwed, don't be afraid to call a lawyer. You're not locked in to anything until you sign their release, which they try to get you to do as quick as possible.

mystic_knight

@Dalboz: I rear-ended them, so totally my fault.

But thanks a lot guys, I feel a lot better about my financial future. The deductible is going to be like $1000, so I won't be able to get another Mustang, but I'm fine with having a different car as long as it has AC, a CD player and gets me to work.

witch_ie

My car was totaled earlier this year in California. It may vary by state, but essentially most insurance companies are going to give you fair market value for your car. This means that they are going to take a survey of all the sales for the 2000 Mustang in your area and make you an offer based on the average sale price. In California, they have to send you a detail of all the sale prices they get as well as the features of your car. Make sure that if they do that, you read it carefully to make sure it's an accurate description of your car. In my case, I got an extra $50 from correcting their assumption on the kind of stereo I had - it was very easy and done over the phone.

Based on the research on this that I did, you can try to negotiate the amount of money they give, but keep in mind, what they are really doing is "buying" your totaled car from you. It's probably in your best interest to "sell" it without pushing them too far. You can also do some research on your own to see what you can expect for your area - remember you want to look at what cars actually sold for. Once you see their list, you can look at it and see if you want them to take into account what you found to boost the price. You can also eliminate low prices if you feel they don't apply to you - say are from further away, just keep in mind that if there are other prices you like even further away, you would be eliminating them from consideration as well. If you're looking at KBB, I would expect it to end up being somewhere in the private seller range, although with the economy the way it was earlier this year, I found KBB to be somewhat inflated both in the value I got for my car as well as the price of the replacement car I bought.