Insurance Assistance Req'd: Help with a Total Loss

[jhmed]

My fiance was in an accident (not her fault) and the vehicle is now a total loss (written off). She had a 99 CRV LX with approx 237,000km's. Immaculate inside and one dent about 2.5" on the tailgate and a cracked windsheild on the exterior. Paint condition and body condition (pre-accident LOL) was immaculate otherwise.

Her insurance company is offering a signifigently (sp?) lower price than she could replace her vehicle for, or even THINK of replacing her vehicle for considering its condition. They are offering $7700

I have disputed this with the insurance company but they maintain that the vehicle's higher than normal kilomteres were enough to knock the value down by almost $4-5000 dollars.

They claim that the appraiser they used searched 'comparibles' in Alberta, and used those as the basis for comparison. We have searched high and low to find any 'comparibles' to hers but can't find any for under $9000. Most are in the $11-12,000 range.

I have some contacts and found out that 'auction' price is $8400 and retail is approx $12,900. I have letters in writing to that effect, and will be getting more from other dealers across the province. I will be sending all the ads we've found online plus purchasing the Bargain Finder, Auto Traders, and Edmonton newspapers to scan and send the insurance company. We will be scanning and emailing all of our receipts to show the maintenence and condition of the vehicle, as well as obtaining a letter from the Honda technician who serviced the vehicle stating his trained, professional opinion about the mechanical state of this "high kilometer" engine. And of course, lots of pictures.




My questions are: What recourse do I have if they will not increase the value of the vehicle? I have searched and cannot find the answer to this question on Beyond or Google. Is there any insurance-minded folks who can steer me in the right direction? I have asked to see the 'comparibles' they used to verify them since I cannot find any, and I have asked to see the other criteria that they used to determine the value but as of this writing I have rec'd no response. Do they HAVE to present it if I ask? Is there a way to force them to if they won't? Is there any other documentation I can provide that will help me in my quest?

The insurance company tried to discourage me from speaking to legal council, but I think I should...

EDIT: I don't want to screw over the insurance company here, I simply want my fiance to have what she started out with: a 99-ish CRV, MT, similarly equipped, in similar condition. No more, no less.

[spikerS]

While I can't speak to specifics, I believe insurance companies will just use black book values, unless you have the vehicle appraised, and have the vehicle appraised at that value. I know when i was restoring classic cars, when done, I had to get 3 appraisals from 3 different appraisers, and had to present them to the insurance company in the event of an accident to prove the vehicles worth.

i would give 403gemini a call, and ask his advice as iirc he is in the insurance business.

[jhmed]

They are unwilling to do another appraisal on the vehicle ( I asked -- err, well, I actually kinda demanded... LOL), and the value they are quoting doesn't match the criteria they say they are using. They are telling me to ascertain the value they use 'comparibles' from other ads in Alberta for other CRVs of similar age/condition etc..., and book value.

I find it impossible to duplicate their results since the searches we're doing, using the SAME CRITERIA, are all turning up with a dollar figure worth substantially more than the amount they've offered. I refuse to have our vehicle compared with 97/98 CRVs (with 20 less horsepower), I want to ensure that the comparibles are fair.

Even EX/LX had very minor differences (alloy wheels, painted trim pieces and keyless) which shouldn't make that much of a difference... especially since they probably didn't even know her LX rims were only 3000km's old and she HAS keyless (no FOBs left with the CRV at the body shop)... therefore to do a true comparison, we could use EXs which are worth a little more, and subtract for depreciated alloys, and what not. Surely that isn't worth $5Gs.

I will contact him in PMs shortly...

Thanks for the info!

[HondaRice]

so black book of a 93 toyota supra is like a third of the price they sell for. what happens in that case?

[avow]

Originally posted by HondaRice
so black book of a 93 toyota supra is like a third of the price they sell for. what happens in that case?
when you own a car like that its best to get it apprised and submit it to the insurance company when you get the car insured to avoid problems like this.

[jhmed]

Originally posted by avow

when you own a car like that its best to get it apprised and submit it to the insurance company when you get the car insured to avoid problems like this.

Don't forget to get the special clause in your policy that stipulates they will USE the appraisal... that's what I plan for my CR-X.

Unfortunately, we didn't think we'd need to do that for the CRV.

[ringmaster]

Originally posted by jhmed

EDIT: I don't want to screw over the insurance company here, I simply want my fiance to have what she started out with: a 99-ish CRV, MT, similarly equipped, in similar condition. No more, no less.

Yes you DO want to screw the insurance company up the ass as hard as possible. Why you ask... because they are trying to shove their giant ass raping fist into you so hard that you will never want to make a claim again.

I went through the same thing as you a few months ago when we had the flooding in calgary:

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/18/dsc00824ej0.th.jpg

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9997/dsc00820gl2.th.jpg


My car was a total loss and insurance wanted to give me $4200 for it. I was furious at their offer and was preparing to assassinate the appraiser who worked on my case and start fucking his wife. Against the advice of my lawyer I decided not go through with this.

I probably spent about 4 hours in total on the phone with jackass appraiser #1 over a few days after the initial contact with him proving that I could not replace the car for $4200. You need to gather a good sized sample of CRVs that you would concider buying that are in similar shape and milage to yours. Print off and fax him all that you can find that support your argument. Next request all the doccuments that he has gathered to support his figure. This will come in the form of an "Autosource Valuation Report", or at least mine did. Have him fax you this. Call ALL OF THE NUMBERS for the ads listed in the report. I did and they were all 1 to 2 years old and or the phone number was disconected. Let them know that their report is full of shit and this should give you a legit hand up when he goes over all the over priced and better condition CRVs you faxed him earlier.

This is when I meet jackass appraiser #2. He tells me that jackass #1 has gone on vacation and that he will handle my file. Great. He tells me that they have come up to $5200 because they were blind and didnt see that the car was in mint condition.
I told him that wasnt good enough seeing as how to replace the car in the current market would cost me (or him I should say) at least $7000.

This was also the time that I dropped the news that I had a very nice stereo in it which was all hidden in behind the back seats. He was not impressed that they missed it on the original inspection so he came up with $7000 after calling the holding yard to confirm the stereo story.

Bottom line is that you need to be firm with them and be persistent!!:whipped:

[jhmed]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. It's nice to know that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel for us in this matter.

I will be persistant in this.

So far, we have:

- A letter from a local Honda dealer stating the retail value of a CRV with our high KMs, and we will be contacting the rest of the Honda dealers in Calgary, the ones in Medicine Hat, Red Deer and two in Edmonton to get similar letters.

- We have SEVERAL ads all showing 1999 CRVs with similar options as ours - and only one is below $9000 so far (and it was an auction house ad)

- We went to Chapters and bought books about used cars that show that 99+ CRVs had 20 more HP than 97/98 CRVs, I have PDF copies of pages from the Honda repair manuals showing the engine codes are in fact different from 97/98 and 99+ in an effort to show that older model CRVs should NOT be considered comparible.

The 20 extra horses is WHY we got a 99 instead of an older model in the first place.

- We have receipts of all the maintence items and parts we have put on the vehicle.

- We will be getting a letter from the technician who worked on the engine stating that in his professional opinion there were no obvious signs of excess wear associated with higher kilometer engines and that he was extremely impressed with the overall condiion of the vehicle. He's been a Honda technician for over 10 years. Those were real statements he made about the vehicle shortly after purchase, we're just basically having him put it in writing.

- We have the registry report showing the people we bought it from were the original owners. One owner vehicles make that car more valuable than 5th owner vehicles sometimes. Its a stretch, but I'm throwing it in there!

They bought it under their company, and they live out of town, so most of the high KMs can be attributed to Highway driving. We will be taking s/shots of Google Earth of their location to prove this. The real value of a car with Highway km's can sometimes be higher than ones with similar 'city' km's. Again, a stretch, but highway KMs WAS one main reasons that we weren't too concerned about the high KMs when we bought it last October (205,000km when we bought it 10 months ago). The other was engine condition.

We will also be showing the distance travelled two days a week to a horse farm that my fiance volunteers at. We will obtain a letter from the owner of the farm to prove this as well. This will lend further evidence to the type of driving that contributed to the high KMs. Screenshots of Google Earth will also prove this. Another stretch, but one that I'm willing to make.

- We have the original inspection sheet from when we purchased the vehicle showing the condition.

- We have approximately 75 JPEGs of the CRV from when it was purchased and some trips we made in it.

- We will be contacting a lawyer to see what our options are.

- We will be contacting an appraisal company of OUR choosing, and we will be having them look at the vehicle, without the insurance company's knowledge beforehand. We will be providing that independent appraisal company all the information above for their consideration; something the insurance company didn't do. (Whether they use all our stuff or not is another story) We will then submit that appraisal to insurance with everything else.




Wish us luck.

If they turn us down after all that, then I really don't know what else we can do... anyone have any other suggestions?

[403Gemini]

First off

Originally posted by spikers


i would give 403gemini a call, and ask his advice as iirc he is in the insurance business.

im never talking again in another insurance thread ;) j/k

Andy,

As far as disputing it you have ever right to do so, and come up with as much evidence as you can - however most insurance companies require you to hire a registered appraiser (and pay out of your own pocket, usually costs about $150) to have the vehicle re-appraised.

If you think the value of the vehicle is worth more, come up with a list of things you think may increase the value of the vehicle (recent maintenance, etc).

Honestly the main thing that is probably holding it back is the high mileage, but does it have things like sunroof, power windows/locks/alarm etc (im not familiar with CR-V's and its too late for me to look it up haha). There is hope , just get a solid argument, afterall your insurance is there to indemnify you, not fuck you over.

Hope that is some insight, I would go every avenue before hiring an appraiser to view the vehicle to see if they budge at all, and another great thing to do is talk to the appraiser HIMSELF/HERSELF that looked at your vehicle, the adjuster that you are talking to at your insurance company is just looking at a piece of paper with a number for the ACV(actual cash value) of the vehicle - not much they can do.

If you need anything else, feel free to ask.

[Supa Dexta]

150?$ hell I think my last appraiser was 20 or 25 bux... Not in calgary though.. you'd be better finding one in a small town, and go pick him up drive him to do the appraisal and take him out for lunch for less then 150...
:rofl:

[ntv1980]

Good luck finding an independent appraiser. I was in the same situation before and every place that I can find in the phone book does not do the "appraisal" to counter the appraised value by the insurance company (it sounds like a conspiracy that these appraisers are afraid to do anything to make the insurance company "dislike" them)

If the insurance company gives you the contact info of the original appraiser, great (unfortunately, they don't in my case). Get the evidence and contact (meet/call) them and state your position.

In my case, I've been taking time consulting so sometime later on the insurance company offers another 1000 on top of their original offer. My guess is that they want to settle it quick so they can make more when they put it in an auction.

As I'm aware, anything that's required more than 60% of the value of the vehicle, they'll write it off & screw you up with a very low value.

So, you can look at "ringmaster" reply and see if you can change their offer using these methods.

Good luck!!!

By the way, what is the insurance company that you're dealing with? (same for you too, ringmaster)? I've had TD/Meloche Monnex and not happy about them handling this written off. I've heard 1 good story on written off case from Co-operator Insurance, so probably I may consider them later on.

[Masked Bandit]

Who is your actual insurance company? Stories like this do not make me happy and I would like to see if it's one of the companies we deal with.

Also, have you tried discussing this with your broker? We (brokers) don't have any actual authority with the adjusters but sometimes can act as peacemaker in the middle.

Also, it the other party was at-fault, who is it that you are actually fighting with...your company or the other person's company?

[jhmed]

I'm going to leave the name of our insurance company out of this thread until everything is settled.

We are actually fighting with my fiance's insurance company, not the other guy's. That's what is puzzling to me; why we have to fight with the same people who should be on our side in this type of thing. This is not the first time this has happened with this company, however.

We have assembled our comparibles, and are ready to make our case. I have received their appraisal information and blew holes in it a mile wide in less than an hour on the phone.

Wish us luck. I don't want to have to phone the Insurance Council of Alberta over this.

[anhthanh]

sorrie abt ur car , seem sliek ur going through a nightmare. but i was just wondering , if u have a car with body kit, stereo, rims,and engine mods. and u get into a accident which ur car is written off. how would the insurance companyfind teh vaule of ur car?? or they just treat it like a stock car and give u wat it wrorth minus all teh stuff u put in it ??

[old&slow]

This same thing happened to a guy I worked with...he owed money on the car...so after all was said and done he got a check for $12000 to give to the leinholder and was stuck paying back the other $5000 he owed cause they (insurance) said that it was only worth 12!

So he carried insurance against the risk of loss and yet was left holding the bag for $5000 on a car that was now gone...how is that possible or even legal for that matter.
Insurance companies have become thieves and the government lets them rape us!

[ringmaster]

Originally posted by jhmed
I'm going to leave the name of our insurance company out of this thread until everything is settled.

We are actually fighting with my fiance's insurance company, not the other guy's. That's what is puzzling to me; why we have to fight with the same people who should be on our side in this type of thing. This is not the first time this has happened with this company, however.

We have assembled our comparibles, and are ready to make our case. I have received their appraisal information and blew holes in it a mile wide in less than an hour on the phone.

Wish us luck. I don't want to have to phone the Insurance Council of Alberta over this.

That is good of you to leave their name out of this. I however hate my insurance company with all of my being so I would like to tell anyone that will listen to stay away from ING

[ntv1980]

Originally posted by old&slow
This same thing happened to a guy I worked with...he owed money on the car...so after all was said and done he got a check for $12000 to give to the leinholder and was stuck paying back the other $5000 he owed cause they (insurance) said that it was only worth 12!

So he carried insurance against the risk of loss and yet was left holding the bag for $5000 on a car that was now gone...how is that possible or even legal for that matter.
Insurance companies have become thieves and the government lets them rape us!

IMHO, somehow I think this revolves around the magic amount of $4000 injury cap. So, let's say your car is actually worth 12,000 , they'll take 12,000 - $4,000 = $8,000 which is the amount they will offer you.

And yes, you feel being raped big time and you have hoped that the government will do something about it (or should I say they should have not put the $4000 injury cap on)

[jhmed]

WE WON!

We picked up our cheque today. $11,100 total.

A far cry from the $7700 they offered in the beginning!

We wrote a 5 page letter, included over 30 attachments, ringing in at just over 32MB in size, total.

We had seven pictures showing condition of the vehicle, a letter from the Honda technician who performed work to our vehicle, eight pages of receipts for parts/maintenence, four comparable ads from Calgary, two letters from Honda dealers estimating a retail price for a CR-V (Honda West and Calgary Honda), and three scans (Edmunds, Consumer Reports and Honda shop manual) showing engine differences between 97/98 models which make them a poor choice for comparison to a 99+ CR-V due to 20 less HP in 97/98 models.

We tore the appraisal to shreds, when I called all the ads and such (as per a suggestion on Beyond) I found that some were inaccurate, one was in a major collision (which ours wasn't) and that was why the price was low, and one was a Nova Scotia car, probably with a rusted out underbody; not that I would be able to tell since they were all in EDMONTON! And all the dealers they supposedly contacted; NONE had a CR-V our age in stock, and most were quoting prices from older models they sold recently. One dealer told me that he hadn't had any in months! And of all 6 comparibles they listed contacted, only TWO were based in Calgary! To add insult to injury they never once contacted us to obtain any additional information about the car to perform a proper appraisal.

Apparently, after receiving our letter, the insurance company sent our information to the appraisal company and they 're-assesed' our CR-V. In its current state, regardless of 'excessive KMs' they were claiming, we asked for $11,900 + GST, hoping for about $11,500 total. (We took the average of all the ads we could find for 1999 CR-Vs in Calgary and then used the lower of our two estimates from the Honda dealerships to arrive at that figure.)

When they approached with $11,100 we figured "Fuck it. Close enough."

The amount we were finally rewarded was more 'in-line' with the replacement cost for my fiance's vehicle. I'm very happy.

Thanks for everyone's support on this! Will post a pic or two when she gets another CR-V again!

[ntv1980]

Congrat jhmed. Come to to the big pictures, it sounds like the appraiser were too lazy to do a proper apprasal.

A few questions for you:

- Who is the insurance company she's with?

- Were the adjuster co-operative (and the insurance company were co-operative) after your submission of the info?

- Will you recommend the insurance company based on your experience (dealing with them)?

Good job....