12-03-2010, 12:49 AM | #1 |
Tri-State Training Wheels
|
need help/advice
My girlfriend was in my dodge caliber 2 weeks ago stopped at a red light. A woman driving a Toyota tundra rear ended her at 45+. she was using her cell phone and never even hit the brakes. thank god my girlfriend walked away with some minor lower back pain which was caused by bruising, confirmed by ER. Thankfully 2 dover cops witnessed the accident and immediately said the woman was at fault. My girlfriend and i are both DE residents as is the woman that hit her but the truck was insured under a fleet insurance company based out of pa. Heres where it starts to get interesting. The accident occurred late in the afternoon. I immediately went to the scene of the accident and contacted our insurance company and the womans insurance company. I was told by her insurance company to have the vehicle towed to my house because it was so late in the day and to pay the bill and provide them with a copy of the receipt. A few days later an appraiser checked out the car. I was at work but my brother was there during the inspection. He never looked in the back of the vehicle but he did provide a rather thorough appraisal minus interior pieces and the drivers side tail light which appears fine but now holds water. I contacted him as instructed by the insurance company about a sub woofer that was damaged in the accident. He asked me to provide pictures of the damage in an email with a link to a reputable site that had a price. Also during this conversation i asked him if the stereo equipment in the vehicle needed to be removed and he said yes. This was confirmed by body shops when i was shopping around for them as well. Once i removed the equipment it revealed much more damage to the floor and inner rear quarter panel area. Today i get a letter in the mail with a check for the amount of the appraisal and the amount of the towing. The letter states that the check is the settlement draft and the car needs to be repaired within 13 days of the incident and the rental car is only available for that period without out of pocket expenses. Here are the problems... 1. when i first requested a rental they denied it until i threatened to call my lawyer 2. the draft does not include any expenses incurred from the visit to the ER, prescriptions, or anything for the $400+ sub woofer 3. I was told by numerous body shops that the insurance company had me tow the car to my house to save them money and i should charge them for storing the car 4. I was also told the insurance company should be billed for the removal of the stereo equipment (I have a business license to install car stereos so i did the work myself). It took a total of 5 hours to remove the equipment which included numerous amps, component sets, double din, kick panels, reverse camera, etc. 5. heres the main issue...the accident occurred on 11/18, i received the letter today 12/2 so it has already been 14 days since the incident occurred. now i have a check from them for the appraised body shop expenses but obviously the car can not be repaired in the alloted time because it has already passed so what if more damage is found (which it will be because the appraiser never opened the vehicle... I will be calling the insurance company first thing in the morning but this is my first time dealing with an accident and i feel like i am being jerked around. Should i get a lawyer? I feel the car should be totaled should i fight for that? any help/advice is much appreciated. Last edited by Stage3S4B5; 12-03-2010 at 12:58 AM. |
12-03-2010, 01:00 AM | #2 |
Tri-State Post Whore
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: all over
Member #10595
My Ride: Does not hit mivec anymore.(DD) 06 solstice 5 speed. 84 IMSA Fiero5 speed. 87 Fiero GT 5 speed iTrader: (0)
|
Your entitled to any kind of expenses that wew incured by this accident (towing, medical, repair, prep,) best thing to do is contact your insurance company and see what they can do. usualy when you get 2 insurance companys arguing you always win. If not fully rembursed for the expenses you listed i think you are entitle to sue the woman who hit you and her insurance company for the damages/cost's
|
12-03-2010, 07:36 PM | #3 | ||||||||
Tri-State Addict
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Boyertown, PA
Member #5220
My Ride: is completely stock and gets great gas mileage. iTrader: (2)
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
As far as the towing thing... it's hard to come up with civil words for that. I hear about that garbage too often. YES, they had your car towed to your house to save them money. The insurance company is responsible for the entire process, including arranging towing, paying for the towing, and also paying any storage fees that are incurred. We have a daily storage rate of $100/day for indoor storage and $65/day for outdoor storage in our fenced-in lot. Those are the fees that the insurance company must pay or they will not get the car back. They hate paying storage fees so they'll BS you into towing it to your own house on your own dime. Yes, you should absolutely charge them for storage. If it was me? I'd invent my own storage fee... $100/day sounds fair. I'd get every cent of it too. Quote:
Quote:
When a car gets to a shop, the estimate is already written and the job is set into motion. The car gets torn down and additional damages are noted, along with a ton of pictures of the damage. The additional parts and/or labor is written up on a supplement and it gets forwarded to the ins. company. Quote:
It does no good to try to get your car totaled. As I mentioned in another thread recently, you have absolutely no say in that. Insurance repair is not variable, it's a purely numbers based business. It runs on a simple if/then system. If X, then Y. If the repair cost is less then a certain percent of the total value of the car, then fix it. If the repair cost is equal to or greater than that same percentage, then total it. The customer and the repair shop have no say in the matter. Don't give in.. fight the insurance company with your insurance company as your weapon if you have to. We have had many customers who have run into the same sort of issues and they just entered a claim with their ins. company and the two companies battled it out over who's responsible for what. Very simply, you are responsible for nothing. You were hit... they do the work and foot the bill.
__________________
Quote:
Last edited by DC2.2GSR; 12-03-2010 at 07:45 PM. |
||||||||
12-04-2010, 03:58 AM | #5 |
Tri-State Training Wheels
|
DC2.2GSR thanks a lot for the very thorough reply. After 11 calls to penn national insurance company i finally got a hold of the supervisor of my claim representative. All other attempts went straight to voice mail. She had the rep call me and we got a lot of the issues straitened out. They extended the rental until Jan 2nd pending any additional time spend waiting for parts, etc. so my alloted time for repair and rental should be more than adequate. She confirmed the supplemental process as you described. The woofer that was installed in the vehicle was damaged and i sent her pictures and information about it of which she said was already being processed. So it looks like everything is good now other than the storage fees. The guys at the body shop have been more than helpful so i will talk to them about submitting invoices for the stereo removal and storage fees. Still sucks for all this to be happening. I have attached pictures of the stereo that had to be removed...only difference is instead of 2 18"s there was only 1 8" sub in the back which was changed when my girlfriend started driving...custom a pillars were removed as well.
Last edited by Stage3S4B5; 12-04-2010 at 04:02 AM. |
Bookmarks |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
im getting a new car need advice | phillycivicsi | Audi / Volkswagen Talk | 25 | 05-08-2009 07:09 AM |
Need advice on a car... | Keeper1343 | General Car Related Chat | 50 | 07-08-2008 12:33 AM |
need advice ppl that know the law help me! | deadone000 | Off-Topic | 5 | 12-20-2006 01:00 AM |
I need advice. | halfhorsepower | General Car Related Chat | 6 | 11-16-2006 12:44 PM |
How about some advice? | SUB2.5RS | Off-Topic | 9 | 09-27-2006 10:33 AM |