(Long message alert...)
Geronimo x54903 page 951-3432 <GENDIMEN@T12SYS.intel.com> writes:
> I had problems with the insurance when my 320i was totaled several years ago.
> The body shop who I usually do business with totaled it (they always use
> factory new parts when available). The insurance company had an estimate done
> at another place, which wanted to use a used front clip. They ended up
> totaling it, but not after dawdling around for 4 weeks.
A point I haven't seen mentioned is that too often the adjuster (who works for
the insurance company, not you :-( ) will total out an older car almost auto-
matically, since the book value is difficult to establish without a great deal
of hassle and argument back and forth. This happened not once but twice over
the years with my wife's Pontiac, the first time being a payout by our insur-
ance company, the second time being a payout by the other guy's. In both cases
I was stuck having to establish the car's value by rummaging through photo
classified magazines to find similar cars in order to prove to the bozo that
a '72 G.T.O. was worth more than $500. It was easy to do; the aggravating part
was that I had to do it at all. Most galling of all was that the first claims
adjuster told ME that that's what HE did before totalling our car, but when I
checked his classified ad magazines, I discovered (and he later admitted) that
he hadn't looked in them at all.
I became painfully aware of several things:
1) The adjusters are working for the insurance company, not you, and their job
is to spend as little as possible of the company's money. A good way to put
pressure on them to improve the deal is not to argue with THEM, but with your
insurance agent, as he/she is more inclined to be on your side in an effort to
keep your business. It helps if you're not filing claims every other Thursday,
of course.
2) The adjusters are under no constraints to be totally upfront with you. This
is not to imply that they're all crooks, but their standard operating procedure
is going to be that which is most beneficial for them financially. You should
be checking that estimates are thorough, repairs are complete, parts used are
correct, and so on.
3) Unfortunately, in our own experience and some cases that friends have asked
me to look over, some adjusters are, well, just plain incompetent. It's always
aggravating when you have to deal with someone in the auto industry who knows
less than you do, but when you're in the stressful position of trying to get
your pride-and-joy repaired, it's even worse. The all-time looniest case I've
seen was an adjuster who showed up at the dealer to quote the cost of repair
for a steering column on a theft recovery. This guy swept in unannounced,
began riffling through the parts manuals at the parts counter, picked the
wrong parts for the wrong steering column for the WRONG MODEL OF CAR, ignored
the protests of the service manager and disappeared down the street. It took
two phone calls to this guy's supervisor to get the paperwork straight again.
> It's really important to get a shop you trust with your car, there's a lot
> of bozo's in the auto body business.
Indeed. My preference is always to use my favorite body shop, not the one
recommended by the company. The insurance mills may be inclined to cut corners
and just do the minimum required to make it look like new. This is not to say
that the work is inferior, but when they're under contract with an insurance
company, they can pretty much rely on a good stream of business coming in, a
lot of which comes from everyday consumers who aren't too inclined to look
for perfection in a crash repair. My worst anecdote for this is a '78 Camaro
nose repair done by an insurance mill (a Chevy dealer, to boot!) that failed
to secure half the fasteners on the new nosepiece, then forgot to add the
flex compound to the paint. Shortly after we found the source of all those
rattling noises in the front of my brother's car, the paint began falling off
in huge chunks... sigh...
Andrew C. Green
Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com
441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg
Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473
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