Doesn't even come close to what I feel it should. Any of you guys have any experience with this? By the way we are were not at fault. T-boned on a through street.

Without knowing make, model and mileage - hard to say.

I've had several cars totaled out - never been my fault. Considering their age/miles - I always got what I thought was fair. I'm driving a 12 year old car with 86k on it - yeah, I'm not getting as much as I'll need to buy a new one free and clear.

Now if you're talking injury settlement - talk to a lawyer.

Try telling them just replace it with exactly the same thing mileage and all in good condition. It's going to be a fight. You can get a few estimates on how much to replace it. That's the whole problem. It shouldn't be too much to ask to get it replaced with no cost to you. It wasn't your fault.

Isn't your insurance supposed to allow you to replace your vehicle with a comparable vehicle (similar year, mileage)? Tell your insurance agent to show you a comparable replacement in Autotrader/Craigslist/etc. and point out the price difference, if any, and go from there.

About 40-50% of KBB average.

What do you base your feelings on about it? Your insurance company is probably using the NADA value minus your deductible, or their own database. You should find out which.

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Isn't your insurance supposed to allow you to replace your vehicle with a comparable vehicle (similar year, mileage)? Tell your insurance agent to show you a comparable replacement in Autotrader/Craigslist/etc. and point out the price difference, if any, and go from there.[/quote]

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You are under no obligation to accept their initial settlement.

Just picked up our 11' Mazda 3
Had to use our 'uninsured' coverage as the person that hit my wife[was ticketed] failed to report to her insurance for 2 weeks.
Initial estimate came in at $4,700 and I was surprised when my ins said fix it.
Clean KBB is at $5K+/-

My ins sent final claim forms today, total was actually over $7,700!!

Don't accept it hold tight the longer you can hold out the more money you're going to get...

1996 or so, I got rear ended at a stop light. I was in an 88 Toyota truck with 148k on the clock. Car that hit me was a Buick of some sort. Cops estimated they were doing 50-60 mph or so.

I had 9k in body damage alone and unknown mechanical (didn't get that far) and the insurance wanted to fix it. They make weird decisions. I literally had to stuff a bottle jack between the rear tire and bumper to push it away from the tire so I could change it out - flat. The rear axle or pinion was bent at a minimum as well.

Wife was driving our little TDI Jetta and was hit and totaled. I did a little research before the other party reached out to settle. I gave them 3 examples of a comparable vehicle within 50 miles and said I expected the average. Had a check in a couple days.

In essence, you are selling your car to the insurance company, so you can negotiate on the price somewhat.

You have the duty to show the adjuster why your car has more value than what they are offering. Do some research on Craigslist, Autotrader, Cars.com, Carmax, etc. and only show the adjuster the highest comps you can find.

The adjuster will usually deduct for bad tires, excessive door dings, faded paint, stained interiors, and so on.

On the other hand, if your car was pristine, keep pointing that out, over and over again. I also like to remind the other guys adjuster that 'your guy hit me, and put me in this position'. The adjusters are human, and I like to think I can 'guilt' them into paying a bit more, because 'your guy put me in this position'.

I always advise my clients to ask for more, even if they like the first offer from the insurance company.

The insurance company offer should include sales tax on the agreed amount, plus the balance of your license plate registration costs.

Did they get ticketed?

This. People are just tricked into accepting the screwing by the insurance Co. Contact lowyer or state govt insurance board.

I hired a asset appraiser for 300 bucks and he came up with a report and number and we went from there. Geico got right after that.

This is the way. Same with homeowners insurance, they are only interested in paying the bare minimum and most people fall for it .
Asset appraisal for auto claims and public adjusters for homeowners claims.

I probably hate insurance adjusters more than DMV employees...

No the other driver did not. She did not run the stop sign but claimed she thought my wife was making a right turn, she wasn't even in the turn lane.

The car is a 2021 Ford Fusion in excellent condition and 64 k miles. Anywhere we find them for sale around here they're 20k to 22k for a comparable car. First offer was $15725.00 now they offered $17254.00. Adjuster is trying to blow smoke up my butt I think.

Never accept an insurance companies first offer.
Do you're own research. Come up with your own comps and make your counter offer based on that.

"My (back- - - -knee- - - - -shoulder- - - -head, - - - -etc.) is starting to hurt. Maybe I should consult with my doctor"

The settlement offer will increase dramatically.

Yeah - in my area, same price, except they usually have a bit less miles. 24k miles or so and priced 19.9 to 22.9 or so.

fixed it for you

Why would they give him more for the car because he's claiming soft tissue damage now? Wouldn't that be 2 separate things? 1 claim on the car. 1 claim on injuries - not to be connected?

insurance companies are scam artists to put it nicely. they are all about their own profit margins and really couldn't care less about their customers

fixed it for you

Jim1611: Get that "totaled" car replaced with an equal valued car and sell it for what you need.
I hate insurance companies.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Use NADA, Kelly and comps to support your belief that the car is worth more than they are offering.

Ok, this should be easy. Sit down with the adjuster and on your laptop look at other 2021 Fusion's with comparable mileage/condition and hold him to what you find. As said above, make the adjuster say yes to registration $$ for your replacement vehicle. Look at new car dealerships as well as private party.

What is your insurance company? I need to talk to those guys...

I'm not real thrilled with USAA. All of there constant advertisement about being there for veterans and how great they are is a bunch of bullscheiss.... All their advertisement, about being there for military personnel and vets...is a bunch of lies in my book.

Last year they ended up loosing a boat load of money, so their game plan is to jack up insurance rates by 20% this year..... they penalize ALL of their customers for their financial mismanagement. I don't change horses in midstream, and I've been with them for 10+ years. My dad was with them for over 55 years.

What they sell and what they deliver, are two different stories....

they total a car of mine.. did it get hit in an accident? Hell no!

If you've ever heard this one before, ya got one on me...We had a storm blow up overnight at like 3 AM.
In my yard full of Oak Trees, it rained acorns down on top of one of my vehicles. Car was a low mileage vehicle with a manual transmission, and it was towed behind a motor home when the former owners went on vacation. So it looked like hail damage, on top of it. Went out and got a quote of a local guy, who repairs that sort of stuff, with a quote of $900.00.

Instead USAA totals the vehicle, and said they would pay me $7000.00 for the car and tow it away.
If I wanted to keep it, they'd give me like $3800 or so, and put a salvage title on it.

Told them that wasn't acceptable, and I wasn't going to give them the car. So they sent me a check for the $3800 and told me that they had notified the state that they are declaring the car a total, and then tell me I have to surrender the title to the State, and be reissued a Salvage title, at my expense because they won't pay for that... that was like $200.00 more. I had the max insurance that they would sell for each of my vehicles.

Their check set on my desk for 2 years. I sent it back to them when they sent me a letter to cash it or they would cancel it. I sent it back to them. You've got to be standing next to the car to even notice the damage that is exactly like hail damage. Yet now they consider the car having a salvage title, yet they charge full insurance rates, like it was never touched by anything.




an addendum to previous claims I've had to make for totaled vehicles over the decades, and this goes back to the early 80s, and have done it when ever Its been needed. My wife had her VW Camper hit at a stop, by a car going too fast and hit an ice path, and skidded into the front end of the vehicle. It was declared a total even tho I told them they could repair it by putting a new front end on it. They wouldn't do so. They said they were going to send us a check for $3000... my wife had bought the vehicle 3 years earlier for new at $7000. She was going to accept that offer.

Instead I told the insurance people to send the adjuster over and he could write us a check on the spot.
( they'd do that sort of stuff in those days ). He came over and had a check made out for the $3000 and a waiver for any more claims and was expecting to sign over the title to him. I presented him with quotes from all 5 VW dealerships in the Twin Cities, on the cost to replace that vehicle with ones of similar mileage and the same year range....The 10 quotes I got, the average was $7700.00. I gave him a copy of ALL 10 quotes., and handed the $3000 check back to him. Told him that I could pay it off at $7700 to replace it, or we could go in front of the state Insurance Board. He wrote us a check immediately for the $7700, with no questions asked.

I later came across our VW Bus as it still had the same license plate on it. It was repaired and running fine.
A guy bought it from the Bone Yard it had been towed to. He had a new front end put on it, like I had told the insurance company to do, and they refused. He took it to his brother in laws body shop. At the time I was about $1200 to repair it and repaint the front end.

I really think insurance companies, along with the state governments, want to get any vehicle off the road that has had body damage or is what they call 'too old'.. ( read that as having older emission standards on them), so they let insurance companies get away with this offering low prices to keep it, yet they can charge higher insurances rates for the customer if the vehicle is kept, repaired by them and still drive it...

its all a racket, and the states let them get away with it.. Oregon damn sure does....I have ZERO trust in insurance companies. What they sell you and then what you get when they have to deliver, is two entirely different stories.

It was a 'company' car, on our Auto Owners policy.
Her insurer is AIC

I was going to put it on the market at $5k but now I'm rethinking that price.
It didn't sustain a major impact as the person pulled into the side of it from a dead stop as my wife was driving by.
She was maybe going 5MPH, wife aprox 40mph.
Tore up everything from front driver door back, plus A arm, wheel & tire on the rear.

Paint match looks great and it's a one owner 125K miles car.
New tires, battery[went dead in shop over 3 months].

Thinking I'll try for just over $6K and see what happens.

Just remember he will mention that your's is totaled and that is what he bases his reimbursement on (just kidding of course)

BUT

As a lawyer friend one told me . . .


The insurance company is NOT your friend and their goal is to make money!

You need to find a good diminished value arbitrator/vehicle appraiser in your area. For a fixed fee, usually $300.00-600.00 they will represent you and arbitrate with your insurance company. Very rare for a good one not to make you whole, even if it means taking your ins co to small claims court. I've sent a few customers to a local guy here, and they typically settle for thousands more than the initial offer.

Should be easy, but it won't.

Ya don't sit down with an adjuster on this typea deal.

Insco sends an estimator ta check condition and options, and it's entered inta a computer. When ya call, the person you're talkin to won't have any information more than what's entered in the comp.

If ya dick with em, ya get a "supervisor" that'll handjob ya with a couple extra Gs, but that's it.

Major Inscos are offering yard sale valuations, i.e., what they think the car would get if ya sold it outta your driveway.

Dealer comps mean nothing.

If ya pin em down, they'll admit it.

Do you have maintenance records and receipts?

I've fought other folks' insurance companies a couple of times as what they were offering was nowhere near what the car was actually worth. Older vehicle with a replaced engine, new tires, new brakes, new half shafts, etc which just in that were worth more than they offered.

Best wishes in dealing with the hassle. As other's have said, insurance co's are not your friend, yours or the other driver's.

It suuks even more when it was a well maintained and condition vehicle.

Can't find and replace a fuuking unicorn you kept up.

But ya can find chitty chatty bang bang EPA super fund fliud leak POS same year and model.



Hard to replace a well maintained vehicle with something the same condition on what Insurance gives ya per what they think it is worth even after you get them to come up on the amount.


Add in prices now in the new norm bullschitt.


Good luck man..

And all because someone thought his wife was making a right hand turn.

Jeebus.

And Sheesh even.

Insurance companies are in business to collect premiums, not pay out claims.

I dinged up my travel trailer. Ins wanted to total it and give me $4700. I found 3 identical trailers within 50 miles, the cheapest was $11k. They ended up fixing it.
I had a 2005 Toyota Camry. For 3 weeks. I got the title to it the day it was totaled, was not my fault. I managed to get what I gave for it including the registration and new tires I put on it. As a matter of fact, I came out ahead about $300.

Which is what I did this afternoon: I paid up on both trucks. Ugh.

All businesses are in business to make money.

When it comes to insurers, I have my own problems with them, and I work for one. Bad service is completely unacceptable. But rates I don't have an issue with. Rates have to be approved by the states and insurers are required to charge rates that will cover predicted losses. Undercharging customers will get insurers in trouble with the insurance bureaus, too.

Everyone complains about insurance rates. "I haven't had any accidents!" I get it. But facts are facts. The cost of cars, and the cost of parts have skyrocketed. Many car manufacturers are demanding that cars be repaired according to their standards. Cadillac has models that are remove and replace repairs only. In other words, you're required to strip all parts off that are damaged until you get to undamaged parts, then reinstall new OEM parts. No repairing otherwise easily repaired parts. This causes repair costs to, likewise, skyrocket. I won't even bring up Teslas and other EVs. The cost to repair those is even worse. Parts availability is another problem. Parts availability as been so bad that insurers are having to total cars that could be repaired because by the time the owner is out of the rental after waiting for parts and the vehicle being repaired, the threshold would have been well exceeded to total the car. And replacing a totaled car has been problematic due to availability.

And its not just cars. These problems extend to homeowners claims, too. Building supplies have been in very short supply.

Add the fact that banks are offering loan terms of 10 years or more, then we are assured that higher risk drivers are getting into $50,000 and $60,000 vehicles. I've recently paid $78,000 to an E5 for his totaled Tundra. This he paid even $20,000 in premium before he totaled it?

Medical costs are through the roof. So if there is an injury, the cost of paying those claims has gone way up. 10 years ago the average chiropractic bill for a normal course of treatment was around $3,000-$4,000. I regularly see chiro bills now in excess of $12,000 to $15,000.

So you may not have had an accident, and you may be driving a clunker, but if you have a loss, chances are the cost of that loss will be far greater than it has been in the past. It is impossible for an insurer to simply eat risk at no cost. Someone above mentioned that USAA lost a boatload of money due to mismanagement. What happened was is that they did not keep up with the industry in raising rates when they should have, and as much as they should have. Then they had a bad loss year due to catastrophes. And given the high indemnity versus the premium collected, they suffered a loss. Hindsight is 20/20. They should have raised rates sooner like every other insurer.

My son commutes about 100 miles round trip 5-6 days a week so he spends a lot of time on the road. He has been rear ended twice and had cars totaled. Most recently in a 2009 Honda Fit with 200,000 miles on it. He bought it 2 years earlier for $2500. Insurance paid him $7200 for the car and cut him another $300 check to pay for the new tires he just put on it.

We all felt it was more than fair.

I can come up with oil change receipts but most of the time I have changed the oil myself so that might be hard to prove as all I have for proof is my receipt for buying the oil and filter. We haven't had to spend much on the car except normal wear items like tires and brakes.

Another 30 minutes on the phone today listening to the agent defend the adjuster and backpedal on everything he told me earlier in the week. He also tried convincing me I needed to get the accident report from the sheriff's dept so they could contact the other driver's insurance co. I said, so they're going to treat me better than you are? I told him to get the report for himself, which he has and easily. I may be dealing with some lazy people to boot.

We bought a car today so that's taken care of. We weren't waiting on the settlement check for that. Now I can focus on them. I suggested they haul my car back from the salvage yard too and might push that if they still cause problems. That should cost them close to 1000.00. They don't have the title from us either so it had better be intact. If not I may have them at a disadvantage. I have a figure in mind to settle for so we'll see what happens. The agent said they also found comps that compared to what they want to pay me. All low ball of course. For every one he found I found at least 2 that supported my price.

Several years ago i got hit by 2 cars at a stoplight.

The first car behind me had a crappy insurance co. but the one that hit them causing the first to hit me again had a good one.

After not hearing from them i called and they just gave me the runaround.

I talked to my insurance co and they did what the other should have done.

I had an estimate with in 3 days and my insurance looked for same type in a 500 mile range.

They then found out that ours was worth a lot more money than plain jane was.

My ins.wrote us a check and then they went after the others.

The price was larger than what we paid for it but the sad thing was i really liked that one.

Car Insurance is like divorce...

Its the screwing you get, for the screwin' you got.


with all the hype insurance companies claim when you buy a policy, they ought to honor that, not what they pull to get out of it... like the way adjusters sit in the office each morning over coffee , or around the water cooler, bragging how much they gypted a customer out of the day before...

its like paying for a steak at a restaurant, and then you are supposed to be happy, with the half eaten, and dropped on the floor piece of chicken they want to give you....

insurance companies might by in business to make money... at the same time, I'm in the business of getting what I've paid for, not on accepting what they want to rip me off for.

I run a business. I take care of a customer. If I have to take a loss, that is the cost of doing business.

My reputation and word, is worth more than losing a few bucks.

and as I've always said....you catch a thief from Ali Baba's Gang, and then he asks what are you mad at him, he isn't doing anything different than the other 39 guys are doing.....

I buy max insurance on any vehicle I own and drive... yet after years of paying that, and I finally have a need for what I've been paying for all along... and I'm offered a half eaten hamburger, for all the steak I've paid for.. that isn't acceptable... as they say back home.. " that dog won't hunt!"..

screw insurance companies, because they certainly screw the consumer.

My wife hit a moose with her Buick Enclave. It only had 6000 miles. Our insurance company found the exact loaded model brand new and it didn’t cost me anything. No deductible. I staying with them. Edk

Never does. Insurance companies are some of the biggest crooks on the planet!

Are you now going through your own insurance instead of the other driver's insurance? If so, you will incur a collision deductible which your insurer will attempt to collect back from the other guy's company. If you go through the other guys insurance you won't pay a deductible. All insurance companies are not created equal. Some pay claims willingly and some do not. There is a stark difference between some of the big insurers whose commercials saturate the tv screen. If you are dealing with certain companies you can bang you head against the wall for months and you are not going to get paid what you are owed. If you are dealing with other companies, you will get paid what you are owed eventually. If you bring an attorney in to handle anything other than an injury claim you are throwing your money away as they will take 1/3. Sounds like the other guy's insurer is at least accepting liability at least.