[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Situation like this with a nice older car is a real bummer. Don't know that I really have any advice. However, I was in a similar situation about 8 years ago. My SAAB (about 9 year old at the time with 136K) was rear ended and deemed total. It too was in excellent shape and was dent free up to that point.
I went over 3 months before final settlement. The car sat in dealers body shop lot the entire time as I would not sign any release. In my case I was dealing with an independent settlement firm contracted by the insurance company until never the very end. My experience is probably not relevant because they worked much differently than State Farm is likely to operate. Moreover, it was probably an unusal case. For one thing they arranged for a rental car that was to be direct billed to the company. But the claims adjuster never finalized the approval even though he had setup the rental. The result was that it was charged to my CC and maxed it out. I was on the road at the time so it was a real nice suprise. The sticking point was of course their settlement offer. They determined the car's value by calling 3 dealers (2 used 1 new) and getting a price for the car based on description. The offer was a low ball price 1000-2700 under the range indicated in an apprasal I received from a SAAB salsperson that actually had looked at the car. Surprisingly I eventually got them to send me their evalation quotes (just some numbers and dealer names scratched on a piece of paper by the claims adjuster while he was on the phone) and found that there 'best offer' had been the bottom range of the lowest quote. Even the average of their own quotes was $1200+ more and none of thse folks had ever seen the car. At one point the guy told me to get quotes that demonstrated the higher price I was indicating. I got 3 signed evaluations from 3 SAAB dealers who either saw the car in person or detailed photos. When I told him the results and offered to send them to him he said not to bother b/c we could go back an forth forever getting evalation that dispute one another.
At any rate in the end I did get a decent price and tax title and the like too which had not offered (most people probably never thing about this very real cost). But because of the way the orginal claims adjuster handled the case I had a fire under me and reasonable groups to contest. I also had filed a complaint with the State Insurance office. They didn't do anything but it may have helped Don't know if it was related or not but I was told that the adjust had been dimissed from the company by the time I settled.
posted by 66.222.4...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
