Car Accident Insurance Settlement

Nearly always during the car accident insurance settlement, you and the insurance company don’t see eye to eye on what your vehicle repair costs are worth.

Should you get your own repair quotes, the insurance company will try to push you to accept their own smaller settlements. The bad news is that the insurance company’s prices could be hundreds and even thousands of dollars lower than your actual repair quotes.

If you don’t fully understand how to resolve these disputes with the insurance company, you will end up paying more for your car repair.

To protect yourself from spending money on your vehicle damages, here are a few simple tips you can follow:

1. Get Full Written Estimates

First, you need to get a complete itemized quote for your car damages. Capturing the list of replacement parts and their costs clearly shows how much money it will cost to repair your car.

With a detailed estimate, you can then ask the insurance company to provide their own detailed estimates. In this way you are judging accurate estimates, rather than simply some arbitrary amount from the insurance company. If you are upset with a lower estimate, you have a right to understand how exactly they calculated the low settlement figure.

Make sure your estimates are for the same exact factory vehicle parts. You have a right to get your car in the SAME condition as it was prior to the auto accident. The insurance adjuster’s estimates may be lower mainly because they used less expensive non factory replacement parts. You don’t have to approve this, so get the estimates for the same quality parts.

2. Get High Quality Estimates

You should get your estimates from a shop that will actual work on your car repair. Don’t just go to a random repair shop or gas station and get a rough estimate.

Insurance companies try to sort out your damages as falling in a selected range. For instance, they may expect replacing a broken bumper shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars.

However, this really is dependent upon who does your repairs and the model of your vehicle. So be sure you get your estimates from a repair shop that is experienced in repairing your brand of vehicle. This is going to give you a more dependable cost of labor.

If the insurance company disputes this estimate, make them give you another mechanic shop that can ensure the same exceptional work. If they don’t offer a satisfactory alternative, you can argue that their estimate is inaccurate and you shouldn’t have to settle for poor quality work.

What if My Vehicle is Totaled?

If the cost of your car repair is more than the cost of your vehicle, this is called a “total loss”. The insurance company will try to give you what it considers the Actual Cash Value (ACV) of your motor vehicle. This might also increase disputes because you may think your car is definitely worth more than you are getting.

The simplest way to see if you’re getting a reasonable deal is to check your vehicle’s Kelly Blue Book value. The blue book lists the present value of the car and you can check how much your car is actually worth