The joy of your car getting hit!

[Maggot Brain]

Back in July as I was leaving the grocery store an idiot backed out of his parking spot without looking and clipped the passenger side rear quarter panel of my car. He jumped out and apologized profusely, I wasn't thinking and didn't grab my phone to record the interaction. He gave me all his information and called his insurance and got the ball rolling, took photos etc. Later that day his wife posted on a local Facebook group looking for witnesses to collaborate their "story"... Long as story short, after 3 months, I was able to secure a rental and take my car in the shop, cool no problem...

Well they declared it totaled, all the passenger side panels absorb the impact and ever so slightly tweaked it all down the right side... Cool whatever, the car is drivable and in impeccable mechanical shape, the frames are straight, just damage to the passenger side panels with the major impact the only noticeable damage to the naked eye. The insurance luckily will pay me the value of the car and I'm keeping it obviously...

I arrived to the body shop to pick up my car and of course it was completely stripped down still... Ok I get it whatever, I'm a tech and can have it back together in an hour.... Welped they left it unprotected outside disassembled and the entire car had about 3 inches of standing water and EVERYTHING soaked... Ok that's messed up, vehicle is still my property and now my car is in even WORSE condition than it already was. The body shop gave a halfed ass apology and the poor service writer spent a few hours tearing the interior apart and shop vacuumed the standing water and wiped down every nook at cranny possible... Shit happens and I appreciated his hustle to do something about it.

I spoke with the insurance and told them I'm taking the money AND keeping my vehicle. They issued a check for the value of the vehicle and mailed it yesterday. I get a call today and they are now insisting I gave them the car and want me to release interest to a wrecker coming to pick it up. I can't get ahold of anyone for 3 hours that "can help me" and when I finally do they insist that I said they can take the car... Just fucking Weasles, they have been trying to run me around and trip me up for almost 4 months and it's been exhausting. I declare AGAIN I'm keeping the car.

For 2 weeks I couldn't get ahold of anyone after the initial claim started. They would just send me to someone else who would send me to someone else to would say I needed to speak with a specific person. Full circle of idiots I end back to needing to call the initial agent handling it who sent me to someone else but now they won't answer or return my calls, texts OR emails... Wow, they straight tried to dodge me every single day for 3 months!

Anyways, what a big FAT drag this has all been and I won't relax until my money and my title is in the clear so I'm sure there is a few more obstacles to tackle before this whole pain in the ass is over with. Totally BS that this idiot hits me and I'm the one put out and sent in circles over the whole ordeal.

I'm taking a chunk of the big check and definitely buying myself an amp... The silver lining. I feel like I had to earn this money when really it was owed to me... whatever haha

Anyone else experience this joy? 😄

I've been hit before many years ago in a different card, the insurance companies gave my a little run around back then but in the end it wasn't a straight up chore to get resolved. The insurance company I am currently dealing with is a MAJOR company, they have been nothing but snakes and I imagine that's how they got so big.

 

[StrummerJoe]

DAMN!!!

That is seriously messed up, but not surprising. I hate dealing with any insurance company be it auto, homeowners, medical....

I hope you get it sorted and get a kickass amp for all your trouble!

 

[Filipe Soares]

Can’t you sue them? I don’t know the US legal system, but you must have some consumer rights coucil or something similar.

Either way, it is just money. My last fender bender totaled my car and I broke my neck in 5 different spots. It sucks in your case, a lot, but it could be worse. so sue them, get your money and done.

 

[neikeel]

Usually with fully comp insurance in UK if your vehicle is a 'write off' it automatically passes to the insurance company, no ifs or buts.
If you are lucky and it is classified as a write off but repairable you may be allowed to buy it back from them.
Check your small print

 

[Scumback Speakers]

I'd like to know what insurance company you're with @Maggot Brain ...might save the rest of us the hassle of dealing with the in the future.

 

[Micky]

Dam. I can't say as I take any joy in your epic tale.
I'm glad it's all working out in the end. I been there.

 

[Vinsanitizer]

This is why I say humans suck. Have any of you actually taken a good LOOK at a human being lately? They're sick and hideous, and some of them even want to rule the world!!

 

[Geeze]

First off - an insurance company isn't there to help you, the customer, just to take your money and pay dividends to their stockholders. Second - they are successfully engaging a strategy called - delay, deny, obfuscate, defer and deflect thus generally wasting enough of your time and treasure until you surrender.

My parents were T Boned which tore up my mom's back [after having it fixed successfully several decades before] and Allstate denied the hospital bills claiming 'preexisting' condition for eleven years until they settled after offering nothing, then a dribble of the bill, then a dribble and a little more, ad nauseum - finally bending over to pay the claim.

It's a scam designed to enrich not you.

Russ

 

[LPMarshall hack]

Yep. Insurance is the biggest scam ever invented. They should all be executed.

 

[Lo-Tek]

My wife clipped a deer last year. Front bumper cover ruined and slight bend to pass. front fender.
She has a very low mileage Highlander.
Took it to the body shop for an estimate- maybe they thought they were doing her a favor but they wrote an estimate for every little ding and scratch on the car. Insurance wants to total. Honest to god I could have replaced the bumper cover in the garage and forgotten about the fender but they want to total it???
I called the insurance agency and told them I was going to file a complaint with the state for fraud and did they have any suggestions on how to proceed- that changed their mind about totaling the car pretty damn quick. A-holes!
The payout would have been squat and there was no reason the car should have a salvage title. Totaled?? It was hardly even hit

 

[playloud]

Yep. Insurance is the biggest scam ever invented. They should all be executed.

Yep... I'm often lamenting those calculating bastards that use statistics to distribute the risk of low-probability, high-cost events. I thought we successfully expunged humanity of their ilk at Salem!

@Maggot Brain, sorry you're having to deal with that. I've had a few cars totaled myself and it's always a hassle.

Did they offer you a different amount in exchange for keeping the car? I had a Corolla that got rear ended, and I seem to recall they offered me something like $200 less if I got to keep it (still drove fine, just got a 'salvage' title and the trunk required a crowbar to open). I sold it on Craiglist for close to $1000, so it was definitely worth it in the end.

 

[XTRXTR]

I don't play that at all. After someone hit me several decades ago I called a personal injury lawyer. Best thing I can advise for anyone. Two years ago I got hit again. Same day called a lawyer.

Its great they send you to doctors, you get MRI, and x-rayed, someone evaluates your injury. You get sent to rehab facilities all on the others insurance. Then they take care of getting your car fixed and in the end a decent check for all the trouble they caused you.

You don't pay anything up front, the lawyer does all the talking to the insurance, I never saw a bill.

In the USA its how it works. Or you can go the hard way and try to deal with insurance yourself. F-that when you have a person representing you it works like a clock. Then you get some cash.

The first time some dude from California just arrived for a ski trip. It was snowing heavy wet and with a cold wind. There was a couple inches of packed snow on the street, slick as an ice rink. I was at a stop light this dude hit me doing 45 MPH. I guess he never saw snow before.

The second time I was in a drive through just began ordering a burger, my car in park. Dude hits me so hard the bags go off and the car skids up about 5 feet, trunk is smashed, quarter panel wrinkled. He swears up and down he'll fix it. Gives me the wrong phone number and a false insurance card. He won't do that again.

There is only one word you should be thinking after an accident. Lawyer.

 

[Mitchell Pearrow]

@Maggot Brain
I feel for ya bro, I have had bad luck with insurance companies myself.
But what @Lo-Tek said makes perfect sense.

Mitch

 

[DaDoc]

Insurance is another one of those ideas that started out as a good thing, but turned into a money making racket..The insurers don't give a damn about their customers, only their shareholders.

I once had an insurance agent look me in the eye and say with a perfectly straight face "We don't make any money from car insurance, the only reason we carry it is because the law requires us to!"

Bullshit. If they weren't making money, they wouldn't be in the business.

 

[XTRXTR]

Insurance for risky investments is what led to the 2008 Wall Street Financial crisis / global crisis. Its all in that movie The Big Short. Lawyers are what scare the crap out of them. Imagine being one of those giant banks and realizing you are liable for millions of peoples homes and lives because you f'ked up. You run out and in a secret meeting with out any executive branch, judicial branch, or legislative branch members present, you hatch a scheme that scares the Fed and bails out the banks, and the POTUS sells it to the public, gets the legislators to approve with no over sight. No Oversight?! No investigations lead to any convictions for it because that would lead to another financial crisis.

What you don't hear are the lawsuits that were brought against a few and settled. All very clean...NDA

Lawyer up - Just like Better Call Saul's license plate. You just can't play on the insurance level without a lawyer. You should check out videos on the Tube concerning insurance adjusters that use all kinds of tactics to disapprove claims. Its a scam that has the approval of the law and is regulated against you.

 

[XTRXTR]

I think most states by law require you to have insurance for your car. How is that not a racket?

 

[Vinsanitizer]

Yep. Insurance is the biggest scam ever invented. They should all be executed.

Aside from the medical system in its entirety, Big Pharma, taxes, and... pretty much everything else attached to the almighty dollar.

 

[Maggot Brain]

I'd like to know what insurance company you're with @Maggot Brain ...might save the rest of us the hassle of dealing with the in the future.

It's not my insurance I've been dealing with but the dolt that hit me. It may have been better to go thru my own and have them pursue his insurance.

His insurance is Liberty Mutual/Safeco and they are straight up scumbags.

This is why I say humans suck. Have any of you actually taken a good LOOK at a human being lately? They're sick and hideous, and some of them even want to rule the world!!

Agree 100% Vin, I have become a total misanthrope the past 5 years. I hate even going out anymore as the stupidity is so rampant It's unavoidable anytime you step out into public.

First off - an insurance company isn't there to help you, the customer, just to take your money and pay dividends to their stockholders. Second - they are successfully engaging a strategy called - delay, deny, obfuscate, defer and deflect thus generally wasting enough of your time and treasure until you surrender.

My parents were T Boned which tore up my mom's back [after having it fixed successfully several decades before] and Allstate denied the hospital bills claiming 'preexisting' condition for eleven years until they settled after offering nothing, then a dribble of the bill, then a dribble and a little more, ad nauseum - finally bending over to pay the claim.

It's a scam designed to enrich not you.

Russ

100%

I've dealt with insurance in the past and experienced their stall tactics but it was a breeze compared to how relentless Liberty Mutual was.

They straight up try to avoid you and break you down/exhaust you so you just give up... I worry how often this actually works. These tactics should be 100% illegal as imo it's so unethical and disgusting.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother's ordeal, that would infuriate me to have a crooked insurance hassle my mother like that... Unethical.

My wife clipped a deer last year. Front bumper cover ruined and slight bend to pass. front fender.
She has a very low mileage Highlander.
Took it to the body shop for an estimate- maybe they thought they were doing her a favor but they wrote an estimate for every little ding and scratch on the car. Insurance wants to total. Honest to god I could have replaced the bumper cover in the garage and forgotten about the fender but they want to total it???
I called the insurance agency and told them I was going to file a complaint with the state for fraud and did they have any suggestions on how to proceed- that changed their mind about totaling the car pretty damn quick. A-holes!
The payout would have been squat and there was no reason the car should have a salvage title. Totaled?? It was hardly even hit

Yeah, retrospect my vehicle would be in ironically better condition had I never pursued anything but yeah no way I wouldn't. I could probably still take it to a "Juan's Ponchos, tacos and tires" and have them pull out the sheet metal and I'll replace everything else.

Sorry to hear your ordeal, it's just scummy the type of weasely shit they try to pull off.

Yep... I'm often lamenting those calculating bastards that use statistics to distribute the risk of low-probability, high-cost events. I thought we successfully expunged humanity of their ilk at Salem!

@Maggot Brain, sorry you're having to deal with that. I've had a few cars totaled myself and it's always a hassle.

Did they offer you a different amount in exchange for keeping the car? I had a Corolla that got rear ended, and I seem to recall they offered me something like $200 less if I got to keep it (still drove fine, just got a 'salvage' title and the trunk required a crowbar to open). I sold it on Craiglist for close to $1000, so it was definitely worth it in the end.

Yeah they offered $1k over blue book and they take the car or I keep the car and get the blue book value. I am going to run everything by a lawyer before I finalize everything but either way I am keeping the car. It is in perfect mechanical condition, low miles, I'll rock a dent on it, Idgaf about cosmetics anymore.

The irony is every beater commuter car I've owned has never had any damage or impacts, every single new car I've owned has been hit, no joke. I had a 2008 BMW 5 series and the day after I got it on my way home from work a idiot in big pickup truck put the trunk in the back seat... Similar stories for 2 other BMWs I've owned and also a few new Subarus... I personally don't care about "nice" cars anymore, I'll only drive Toyotas anymore.

 

[Scumback Speakers]

I only buy lease return vehicles since the profit has been paid for and the dealers just want to move the cars off the lot. Bought a 2006 Chrysler 300C/Hemi in 2012 with 24k miles on it. It's just about to turn 60k miles, but with 3750 miles per year it's in great shape...and it moves pretty good for a 4 door, too.

Just can't cost justify a new car now. Haven't bought a new car since 1987, and kept that one until 2005 when some drunk wench hit it while it was parked going 45 mph. That was the end of that Toyota Celica GTS 5 speed. Loved that car. Oh well.

 

[JeffMcLeod]

...while it was parked going 45 mph.

How does a car go 45 mph if it's parked?

lol