by jmartinez » Sat Dec 22, 2012 02:23 am
I just put 3,000 on my vehicle on Thursday and was in a car accident The Monday after. The vehicle is a 2008 Chrysler town and country limited. The insurance agent is stating my car is a total loss. There is no broken glass, air bags did not come out, nothing wrong with the tires. I T-boned the other car going about 10 mph. The hood, bumper, right head light and right fender was the only thing that looked like had damage. I was able to drive the car around to the Walgreens to get it out of the sweet and it dis fine. Ac still works both head lights its just cracked on the right and the right tire rubbed the right fender when i turned to the right. The insurance wants to pay a little over 18,000 and i owe 17,000. It just seems hard to believe its a total loss. Can i get a second opinion??
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 09:24 pm Post Subject:
Max, are you really saying a shop should devote 30 minutes to 2 hours to properly document and blueprint damages on a vehicle
andDid you really say body shops should perform their services for free?
Mike . . . I did not say that at all. What I said was it should not cost a consumer anything to get an estimate of repair costs. Obviously, each shop sets its own policy, and if one wants to charge a fee to provide an estimate, it may freely do so.
In an environment such as Southern California where there are literally dozens to hundreds of repair shops within a several mile radius, the abundance of competition eliminates the cost of obtaining any estimates -- it's been that way here for more than the 44 years I've been a licensed driver. Maybe in the Ozarks where the number of repair shops is fewer and farther between, paying for an estimate is a normal business activity.
CA (and all other states as far as I know) insurance laws do not permit insurers to require a consumer to use a DRP shop or even one that is simply "highly recommended". The consumer may use any licensed shop of his choice. And you, in the past, have pointed out that case law in some instances does not limit the cost of repairs to the insurance company's own estimate.
a simple decision for insurers to minimize their losses at the expense of their insureds
As far as I'm concerned, Insurance companies that total out a vehicle at 50% of repair cost should be strung up like curing jerky. That's not what consumers are paying premiums for.
Mike, I think we are on the same side here. In no way am I defending the insurance companies at all. It makes my work as an agent far more difficult when the insurance companies act like that with which the OP is confronted.
Flo only cares about selling insurance, she is not an agent and does not empathize with their policyholders needs after the policy is sold
That's 100% correct! Some agents will actually go to bat for their clients, while most others simply collect commission checks and go on the next sale.
And again,
Did you really say body shops should perform their services for free?
Absolutely not! As with many other things in life, the least expensive auto repair is not usually worth the money it's been paid with. Someone probably cuts some corners somewhere to achieve that. On the other hand, a person who's been in business 40+ years has probably reduced their current overhead as much as possible, and still may not be able to compete $ for $ with other shops that simply cuts prices just to get the work. The likelihood is that the cut-rate shops will be out of business sooner rather than later, but the insurers love them in the meantime.
The very contract language that insurers have in their policies for their insureds they attempt to impose upon third party claimants for their lack of consumer knowledge.
No disagreement on this end. Most of my posts here are intended to put consumers on a level playing field with insurance companies. When insurance companies finally realize they cannot "put one over" on a consumer, their attitude often (but not always) changes.
I, for one, would like to see more of your responses to posts here. Your perspective is, indeed, one of great value. And you have the ability to give proper advice to folks who are looking for it.
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 06:44 pm Post Subject:
I was being mostly sarcastic as you percieved. Collision repairers are institutionally told "we don't pay for that", no one else charges us for that, or that is an included labor under a certain procedure, etc even when it is clearly not. What the industry does not understand is we can not be legal negotiators on a claim as we are not licensed adjusters or appraisers (except in NY or Mass), attorneys, or public adjusters nor a party to the contract of insurance. Unless the insurer elects to repair and name the repairer thus becoming liable for the full extent of the repair, they are merely paying for the losses in money without benefit of contracting themselves for the repairs. So insurers are correct when they tell us they do not owe us! But we (repairers) face repercussions when we educate policyholders as to when certain procedures have no exclusions in the policy and certainly not on third party losses and that they may indeed be entitled to payment if they simply ask to be shown in the policy where there are exclusions. Any ambiguity certainly favors the policyholder in a contract of adhesion.
I seldom post because I think you two (Max and Tcope) are on the money on your advice most all the time. It was not that way when I first visited the site. More people should look at their policies as contracts that only they and their insurers are a party to, and that third party claims are governed by tort law. On third party losses insurers are stepping in the shoes( as they should) to settle losses to avoid litigation on every claim. Makes sense, but most codes and insurance law, govern how insurers must act when settling losses with their own insureds. Most people do not have the resources or knowledge to understand their consumer rights when faced with negligence from the at fault party. I believe there should be third party bad faith consequences for insurers that vexatiously delay and deny payment of losses with more teeth and enforcement coming from outside the department of insurance and instead under the auspices of the departments of attorney's generals. There are no state agencies that specifically look out for third party claimants and how they are handled without hiring of attorneys or stumbling into a shop that is not controled by the insurer through agreements not to disclose certain information to vehicle owners.
The time to understand your rights as a consumer involved in an accident is before you become a victim of a negligent party. Most people are not prepared as they enter the meat grinder of collision repair and insurer relationships.
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