Several years ago the paint on my '68 Barracuda was damaged. I called my
collector insurance company, and they sent a collectible vehicle appraiser
out. He was quite knowledgeable, and quoted repainting the entire side of
the car. The insurance company wrote a check and all was good. It was a
very pleasant experience.
That paint job evolved into taking the entire car apart, a color change,
fixing hidden rust, etc. and wound up costing 4x the quote to fix the paint
damage, but that's a different story.
I don't run my older cars through a car wash. The late models get the
brushless treatment from time to time. My Barracuda gets washed using the
water from the basement dehumidifier. Our well water will leave spots.
Rob McCall '67 LeBaron (Might get fresh paint in the Spring) '68 Barracuda
-----Original Message-----
From: mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of roger crabtree
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 5:40 PM
To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: IML: American Clueless Insurance
Dear Clueless Insurance, I hate to tell you this but these insurance companies are far from clueless. Last year my 55 imperial substained damage from a car wash (paint). I have yet to date had satisfaction from them. The first thing they did was hire a independent insurance appraiser to look at my car. He sent them an appraisal of the value of the car. He also sent them an appraisal of the the repaint. I have been to 10 body shops in town and they all want double the amount he appraised it for. Then to top it off he said the paint was at 50% of it's life and cut the award in half. So don't ever think the insurance company is clueless. They played the same game with me. The only money payed so far is to the independent agent. I'm sure he is happy. Myself, I am stuck with damage to my car and trying to finagle a law suite that will cost as much the repair. Montana is a state that the insurance companies have by the throat. When you mention fairness and insurance in the same sentence, it usually means that someone has been hosed. RC Billings, Montanaaaaaa
--- Eric <gearhead@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:********************************************************Rodger, If you supply the insurance company with a recent list of '63 LeBaron ads going back a few months showing asking prices from Hemmings, Auto Trader, ebay, etc, this will help the insurance adjuster to put a dollar figure on the vehicle, otherwise Clueless is only going to look at it as any other vehicle that is no longer listed in their computer program which is akin to the Kelly Blue Book. Also, supplying copies of repair and replacement parts receipts will also show an invested amount you have in the vehicle. These things will show that there is a collector value in the car and that it's not a $500 '84 Chevrolet Citation type of total write off. This is the typical way a higher value is established with insurance companies. They will likely take a percentage of the average of the asking prices you supply and then if the damage is less than 80% (the usual percentage of vehicle value that they use to claim 'total loss') of that value, they shouldn't have reason to call it a total loss and will pay something near the full damage amount. You would want to go out and get the standard '3 estimates' from quality body shops for the repair. Having quotes for the parts you need from the various suppliers you can get bumpers/etc from will help the body shops figure a damage amount. Submit the estimate that would be under the 80% vehicle value average from the asking price averages that you give to Clueless. This will give the adjuster a base figure to work with for the amount you expect to be paid.
Clueless needs to have their hand held through this process. The more foot work you do, the faster they can close out the case and move on to something more in tune with Clueless's professional abilities of looking up values in a Blue Book (which they don't use, they have an industry value computer program that makes it even more simple for Clueless), and ultimately their coffee break.
Eric Portland, Oregon
From: FltSgt@xxxxxxx Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:37:50 EST Subject: IML: '63 Le Baron vs American Family Insurance Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hola
On Monday morning the kid up the street who has been one of the fastest vehicles on the street failed to slow down after it had snowed. Due to the speed he lost control of the '89 Jeep and from 55 paces away he started a hard slide into our '63 Le Baron, backwards. When I asked what happened ( duhhh ) he stated that he was only going 10, maybe 15 mph. ( At such a slow speed this was able to knock the Le Baron over six feet backward into the neighbors parked '78 F150 long bed. The 'Le Baron-F 150 package then went another foot before stopping. )
Yesterday ( 30 Nov '04 ) when the American Family Insurance rep called it was in her second paragraph that she used the words of "just total the car out". When I told her that was not going to happen, she then said they would send out a person to "take a look at the damage".
Today this guy calls and didn't have a clue of what it was that he was to come and look at. But he did use the same " total it out phrase". ( It must be a cheap way for the insurance company to get out of paying for speedy up the street. ) After some time clueless calls back and wants to know which engine did I have in the car. " ... a 413, which was the only engine for the car" I replied. Clueless then said, " ... and how many cylinders does this engine have ?" I started to laugh but since I was in the mountains the cell phone went dead.
After a couple of minutes clueless calls back and wants to know why the door panels are off. I had to let him know that I had taken them off for restro reasons. This time he wanted to know if there was a place for parts for the car. I told him about the Neb and Calif connections. Then clueless asked for their numbers. He said that he would get back to me when he found out the value of a '63 Le Baron.
I'm so glad that I went in the house and took pictures while the skid marks were fresh on the snow.
I told the local NAPA what had happened and they called my Gla Blue Le Baron "...a cream puff". I liked that. They also said they would gladly print out every item that I have purchased whenever I thought the car needed that part.
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===== RC Billings, Montanaaaaaa
http://www.imperialclub.com/temp/1955/RogerCrabtree/
Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies. http://au.movies.yahoo.com
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----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm