Car Totaled have Question

[Turbys_1700]

IMHO...
I would do the exact same thing you are doing...

Try your best to get the insurance company to replace the car with the same equivalent unit...
They always low ball on the first offer and it may take you a month or so to get the most out of them...
I still would have your son go to the doctor just to make sure everything was OK...

10 years ago my father was hit by a young man that fell asleep at the wheel head on...
The young man was killed but my father and his friend was unhurt...
They were driving back from delivering his tractor to get it rebuilt...
They were driving his Volvo class 8 dump truck...
My dad was not at fault and the insurance company, after several months of negation, did finally allow him to replace the truck with an equivalent value truck...
He signed a release form an all was well...
1 month later he suffered a stroke that blinded him in his left eye...
I am thankful that he was spared and still lives...
But I am convinced that the stroke and injury to his eye was caused by the sudden jolt of the crash...
The young man's car hit his truck so hard it crashed up under the drivers door and knocked the front axle back a couple feet...
This was on a class 8 truck...
No doubt my dad you have been killed instantly in any other type of vehicle...

 

[HillStreet]

Read your policy, but I doubt it will reimburse you for the value of your time.

 

[ray66v]

They have offered $7,300.00 for the car or $5500.00 and we keep the car. The current place we had it towed will not fix a car that has been totaled. If it is just cosmetic I don't see and issue with getting it fixed but if the frame was damaged it will be a different story.

If you have $5k+ in damage from a side impact, you almost certainly do have frame damage.

As stated, this is a unibody vehicle. They technically have "frame rails". But, they are just sheet metal boxes welded to the floor. The actual "frame" is the entire structure of the vehicle that exists inside the outer sheet metal.

The inner and outer rocker panel, which is almost surely damaged here, is part of that unibody structure, called a uniside, and that is part of the frame.

If you are suggesting the actual repairing of the frame is a problem, keep in mind it's 2014. We fix frames every single day. Any modern shop has the capability of repairing a vehicle to closer tolerances than the factory builds them too. And, they have lots of incentive to do so. Because, if you don't get it right, nothing will fit. And, if nothing fits, you can't put it back together. If you can't put it back together, you can't deliver it. If you can't deliver it, you can't get paid.

 

[tallyho8]

Imagine if you will if your son had been hurt (thankfully he didn't) and an insurance adjuster calls on the caregiver, doctor what have you to negotiate the hospital's price down so that the shareholder's of said insurance company stay happy.

Now imagine your son with a healing leg with a metal rod installed in his femur that was made in China manufactured from substandard mild steel metal and not surgical stainless steel that a human body requires. Price negotiated down by an insurance company adjuster, maybe the same one who tried low balling you.
Regards, Fred

It sounds like you don't know that this is what is really happening now. Attached is a copy of one of my insurance claims receipts. It shows that the doctor charged $348. The insurance company negotiated them down to $114 which they paid and I had a copay of $20. If I had no insurance and had gone there with cash I would have had to pay $348.

 

[ultrarunner]

A driver had a stroke and plowed through the parking lot where I work... took out some ground/parking lot lighting...

Was not getting anywhere with the insurance company untill I presented the repair bill from the same contractor that installed it two years ago...

The kicker is I included the $10 the police Department charged for the accident report and they said it was not reimbursable...

I felt like taking the whole thing to court over $10... of course I did not... just deposited the $1721 check for the repairs....

Like with most things in life... it's the exception when things go well when it comes to money...

 

[MotorSeven]

I'd pass, lots of good used $7300 cars out there.

^^^^ X2

 

[hunterridgefarm]

I'm sorry if I insulted you or sound rough.
Regards, Fred

Fred, no insult or rough sound in your post nor was it interpreted as such.


I will let everyone know the outcome.

Thanks for the reply's guys.