Advice Needed on Insurance Claim (response to jim)

["Maxiudo Ulrich" <mind_probe@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

dear jim:

i write in response to:

>Saturday afternoon, the local cable company's Technician was watching >my 
>'56 Imperial rather than the traffic ahead of him which had stopped >at a 
>red light. In a panic, he decided to hit his brakes and swerve >into my 
>Imperial rather than take out five cars from the rear. The >driver's rear 
>quarter panel and chrome are a MESS.  The back bumper is >done for. The 
>cops came and the accident report puts the Cox driver at >fault.
>
>I am totally ragged out about this. Is there anything that I should 
> >do/know about when the Cox Company's insurance people contact me. 
> >Obviously, this car can't be run down to Al's Body and Paint for a >quick 
>fix.

first, let me say that i hate this for you.  my '62 crown was damaged in its 
transport from seattle to tennessee, and i hated that for me.

second, it rather depends on the laws of your state.  i'm an attorney in 
tennessee and i handle a ton of litigation against insurance companies.  
here, you're entitled to the loss in value to your vehicle.  to come up with 
that rather imprecise figure, you assume a reasonable buyer and a reasonable 
seller, neither under an obligation to buy nor sell, and ponder the value of 
your vehicle immediately before the accident given these assumptions.  you 
then take the same assumptions and determine the value immediately after the 
accident.  in tennessee, when there is an another party that is insured that 
caused the damaged and not just you, you get more than just the value of 
repair.  a wrecked repaired vehicle is always worth less than a non-wrecked 
repaired vehicle of similar quality.  thus the age old question, "has this 
car been wrecked before?".  tennessee also lets the owner of a vehicle 
testify about its value before and after without relying on ANY outside 
document.  hemmings, nada and everything else is all just a bunch of 
inadmissible hearsay that claims adjusters rely upon in forming their 
opinions.  while valuable to the claims adjuster, it matters not a wit in 
court unless the insurance company has an expert appraiser.  i'd imagine 
that there are very few expert appraisers with regard to imperials.  half 
the people in this club would qualify as experts for the purposes of 
tennessee courts, though.

my advice is to call an attorney in your state and find out what the law is 
regarding difference in value and property damage.  most reputable attorneys 
won't charge you a dime to talk to them on the phone for the first time.  i 
don't even charge anyone a dime to come in and talk with me the first time.

my other advice is to find your own body shop, get a quote, find your own 
parts, find out how much it will cost to redo the "new" parts to be as good 
as the old, add them together and round all those figures up.  its good to 
get at least three estimates of repair to make sure they're all in the 
ballpark.  keep in mind that these estimates typically don't get into court 
without the experts themselves testifying, though.  its all just more 
hearsay.

i can't emphasize enough how a wrecked repaired imperial just isn't worth as 
much as one that was never wrecked.

a word to the wise, insurance claims adjusters are not your friends.  
typically, they're just going through the motions and don't give a damn 
about how much your car meant to you, much less what its actually worth.  
they need "hard numbers" to pad their files so that they get gold stars from 
their supervisors and move up the chain of command.

if you have any specific questions, feel free to email me privately.  i wish 
you the best of luck.  my claim process was rather hassle free given that i 
had a good relationship with my insurance agent and the insurance companies 
with which i was dealing all knew i was an attorney and that i wasn't about 
to be bamboozled.

the lord loves an imperial.

best regards,

max

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