What makes anyone think that insurance companies are even obligated to care? I mean sure, there's a little competition between companies, but you are Federally mandated to buy their services or you don't drive, so it's not like they really care about you, because as long as they keep their prices slightly lower than the next guy's, they will always have customers, no matter how badly they treat said customers. Paying you was never in their business model.
JUST TELL THE INS. CO. THAT YOU ARE INJURED and watch how fast they try to settle! OR tell them that you want them to replace your car with an exact condition/make/model/year of what you had. There is no reason you should have to take a loss. All the ins. co. wants to do is keep making a profit at your expense.
I think car insurance is about like extended warranties. We have extended warranty on our Sony flat screen TV. Last week we had to have their tech guy come and check our set. The repair is going to cost close to $1000.00. We were told that our set would be replaced if not repairable. Well, the parts are still available, so they are going to repair it. Odd thing is, looking at Best Buy, I could get a similar TV or even better for less money. Go figure. Seems they try to do the same thing with collision repairs.
If your non factory rims had been damaged they would only pay for factory replacement rims so if car totals and you turn it in you can keep your wheels tires if they will not pay for them but you must put factory rims/tires back on the car.My son's Mustang GT just had damage from hitting a dog and it had a factory Cobra bumper on the car which is about $500.00 to $800.00 more expensive than a stock GT front bumper and Allstate would only pay for a GT bumper that the car should have had when new.I thought that was lousy but we didn't fight it as his wife wrecked the car and a body shop had given me the bumper free with minor damage so we didn't have any money invested in it really.He fixed the car himself. Also you can get a rebuilt title in others states if you desire to repair it but may not ever resell it to someone in florida if they brand it junk/salvage forever.
Yea, I had Cotton States Ins from 1983 until last year when they pulled out of Florida because this state is an insurance nightmare with it's lax rules on the uninsured and the scams. They were fantastic to deal with, reasonably priced and never gave their customers the run around. I had four claims in 29 years that they paid promptly and more than fairly, I would never leave them. Unfortunately they left me. Yep, that is exactly what I plan to do on Tuesday. Have stacks of evidence they are low balling me. Yep very young adjuster who knows nothing but what his boss tells him. We let them create a monopoly and wonder why we get screwed? I printed every 96-97-98 Cobra for sale nationwide from Auto-trader, Craigslist and E-bay plus every dealer ad I could find of cars within 10K driven miles of mine. The average price of the 40 I found was $8500. I printed values from KBB, Nada and the Little Black Book where the average price of mine in "good" condition is $9000. So those tow sources are close. My agent set up a conference call for Tuesday so we will see what happens next. They are not getting the car for $3600, not gonna happen. High mileage cars 180K-200K with issues are asking $5K. Garage Queens like mine are asking $10K. Mikey
think of it this way, It is YOUR car. The Insurance company is buying YOUR car based on the value before the damage. If someone offers to pay less than your car is worth, you do not accept the offer.
Exactly......... I've already decided if I end up having to fight them in court I will go to St Louis, get the car, bring it home and fix it myself. How it plays out it plays out but they are not getting this car for less than $8K so they might as well accept the $6K estimate and fix it. The harder they push the more I will fight this. Mikey
My girlfriend hit some black ice and tagged a curb in her 01 Saturn, about $1,100 in suspension damage nothing else. She has farmers, and when she called it in she made it clear there was no body damage of any kind. The adjuster shows up, writes up the cosmetic issues too, she tells them again she does not want all that fixed. What do they do? they send a check for $2300 covering everything he saw. She fixed this 100K+mile car for $1,100 so you could use it and kept the rest minus the deductible of $500. What's better is, I used to have farmers, but I dumped them after they kept trying to raise my premium by a hundred bucks every six months even though the only accident I ever had was fifteen years ago, have had no tickets for at least seven, and no other claims whatsoever. And they would say that the reason for that is that they pay a lot for claims in my area.....YA THINK? We almost wanted them to total it, but they don't want an 02 Saturn, but something special like your ride? You bet. FIGHT!
it goes both ways years ago,my girlfriend got rear ended in her 04 Mustang back bumper was cracked ,you couldn't even see it. insurance gave her $1200 she went gun shopping.
In my original post you read two of my vehicles got hit withing a half hour of each other. GEICO the insurance company of the girl that hit my daughter paid me very, very generously for the 97 Silverado. 36 hours after the collision I had a check. Progressive is just flat out of their minds. Mikey
Progressive......Listen to what Glenn Beck has to say about that word. It's not like they didn't warn you. I personally like the word "program". It seems to relate to computers,tv, and something you are supposed to "get with". I own a few classics and would not insure any of them without a stated value policy. Progessive is so cool,they tell you who is fixing your car and I guarantee you it won't be pretty.
People that work at the insurance companies are there for one reason.....to save/make the company as much as possible and they do that by paying out as little as possible on a claim. My mother was t-boned once. The insurance company told her to take the car wherever she wanted and they'd dmake sure it was fixed with all new parts (car was 6 years old). She took it to a shop and gave them the info. Apparently a rep from the insurance company went to the shop and told the owner to just "patch the thing back together with any used parts he could find". What they didn't know was that the owner of the body shop was actually my father's brother. He let my mother know what had happened. She immediately called and let them know that she knew what they'd done and that her neck and back were now really starting to hurt. Within 30 minutes, the insurance company had called my uncle back and told them to do the car right. It's all a big game.
I googled the four collision shops Progressive wanted me to use and the list of bad reviews and complaints was astounding. Had my conference call with them yesterday. Faxed all my homework on the value of the car, they said we will reevaluate and call back before the close of business day. No call back. Now if I call, type in my claim number I immediately get a voice mailbox. If I press zero for customer service I get disconnected. Tried it 3X and 3X got disconnected. What complete horsepoopy. Called my insurance commissioner and filed a complaint. On Thursday I'm taking my car hauler, going the 900 miles to ST Louis and picking up the car before it racks up storage fees. Just absolute horsepoopy. Mikey
Damn, wish you were closer to Charleston! I have a car here that needs a ride to St. Louis, for my 16 year old son. Good luck with the insurance company. They are basically organized criminals.
Bear in mind that laws vary from state to state. We own real estate in Florida and insurance there is a nightmare. Friends there tell me that car insurance is just as bad if not worse. In Massachusetts, the insurance company can not tell you to use a specific body shop. I sense that in some states they can. Here, a salvage title is offered; I guess Florida doesn't do that. In an earlier post, someone suggested that a replacement equivalent car be demanded of the insurance company. I doubt that any attempt in that direction would be successful. There is likely nothing in the policy about providing a replacement car - more likely, it requires replacement cost. Insurance companies are not in the automobile business. Lastly, be very careful about arbitration. If it is binding arbitration, you will be stuck with what the arbiter decides unless you can prove malfeasance by the arbitrator in a court of law.
A light at the end of the tunnel. I have been unsuccessful in getting my adjuster to call me, he refuses to take or return my calls. After two unsuccessful attempts at getting a customer service person to listen telling me I have to talk to my adjuster my third try found a sympathetic ear in Eric who after 15 minutes of trying and coming back to tell me he will not hang up, please be patient with him and trying again put me through to some big honcho who listened. I won't use his name so he won't get in trouble but he asked me to fax him all my research, called me back promptly, listened patiently to my side for 10 minutes, told me he is sending this all back to estimating because their models were 4 Mustang GT's and one V-6 with no Cobras considered. He told them to only consider Cobras in their model. He said he will investigate my unreturned phone calls as their system keeps track and them taking two weeks without a settlement is unacceptable. He told me off the record how to win the arbitration hearing if it comes to that. Then he said he drives a 2001 Rousch Cobra so he understands my dilemma and will follow my case to conclusion; a car guy! My policy states "actual cash value for replacement". Which was explained to mean I have to be able to walk on a dealers lot to buy a similar make, model, mileage and year car. They asked me for all my research from all vehicles for sale in the southeast which was 24 cars. There were 7 of that bunch I would accept and that may be the sticking point as I had a black/black car and the ones they picked (lowest priced) were white/beige (yuk) and white/black but actually a really nice car. Mikey ---------- Post added at 08:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 AM ---------- I would come get your car but I am bringing him our 99 Mercury Marquis to drive so the trailer will be loaded both ways sorry. * You ought to hear the whining about a 19 year old college kid having to drive a grandma car after showing off the Cobra to all his teammates. *Priceless! State government doesn't enforce the no insurance laws here in Florida so 30-35% of all drivers are uninsured making the rest of us pay for it. The ticket for no insurance in Florida is $104 so why buy insurance? If you get caught you buy a policy, make one payment get a new card, go to court, pay the $104, walk out and never make another payment. No one follows up so if you don't get caught for 2-3 years you are way ahead. The state says all homeowners pay the same rate whether you live on the beach or inland so we subsidize the oceanfront homes too. Mikey
They relented after I sent the research. I'm now have two options. Take $6K and keep the car or $7.5K and give it up. I'm taking the $6K and keeping it. I can fix it or part it out and make more than $1.5K. So the moral of the story is keep fighting. Mikey
