Need same car insurance claim help, please

On January 8th, a car suddenly turned across traffic in front of me and despite me taking evasive action, I clipped them. The other driver (who has a different insurance company) admitted fault at the scene and both cars were seriously damaged enough to be towed from the scene of the accident. I had my car towed directly to my driveway so I could keep my eye on it. My insurance company, State Farm, quickly came out to my house and after examining it has deemed my car a total loss. Now the fun started.

My car is a 2007 Honda Fit Sport manual with just over 143,000 miles on it. I ordered the car from Honda new and waited over three months for it to be delivered from Japan. I have a four inch thick ring binder documenting everything about the car from the original US and Japanese dealership brochures down to every accessory, add on, and single bit of maintenance done to the car. Furthermore, I’ve only used Honda replacement parts over the life of the car, more often than not taking it back to the dealer for service. All of my detailed records show how I have been fastidious about keeping my car in top shape. State Farm says that none of this matters towards the value of my car and I disagree.

My car is currently sitting on a set of extra rims and snow tires with my factory alloys and summer tires sitting in my basement, alongside over $1000 worth of shocks, struts and springs that I bought but didn’t install yet. State Farm will not give me anything for these items nor will they pay for an oil change that I had done two days before the accident.

What I am looking for is the opinion of some of our forum experts that work in the auto insurance industry. Am I being reasonable in expecting that my service records should increase the value of my car? I personally would pay extra for a car with this sort of documentation and feel that a replacement used car on a dealership lot would be worth less without them. Are my spare parts worth anything in this claim? I was rudely told by the claims guy to take a loss and sell them on Craigslist and that upset me. Again, this accident was not my fault, my insurance company will be reimbursed for this payout by the other drivers insurance company so I’m wondering why they are playing hardball.

Other questions. I had the car towed to my house and put into my driveway. I submitted my tow bill and was already reimbursed by State Farm. However, if my car was sitting in a tow lot someplace, State Farm would be incurring daily storage fees- racking up their overall pay out. Am I entitled to any storage fees for having it at my house? I also used a rental car provided under my policy for just a few days until I bought a new car. I returned the rental seven days sooner than the maximum term allowed by State Farm. Am I allowed to get the cash value of those seven days since I provided my own transportation?

I am located in Pennsylvania if that makes a difference.

Jim

What price would you like for the Fit?
Tell the insurance company what that number is and back up your argument by showing listing from places like autotrader for like kind and quality.
Keep your performance parts and install them on the replacement Fit.

When my Fiesta got totaled , my insurance co., Farmers, said they checked price on what Fiesta's were selling for. They sent me a nice check which was more than I had anticipated. Sent them my Title.

They absolutely will not pay for parts you haven't installed, and frankly, why should they? And the oil change was routine maintenance. I had a headliner installed in my van about 6 months before it got totaled. They gave me about 25% of the cost, but as increased value of the car, not in reimbursement for a recent maintenance item.

Nor will they pay an allowance for a rental car you didn't use. Learned that one the hard way; next time I will take the rental even if I don't entirely need it. There were circumstances that made me not do so, but in the long run, I should have.

All the other stuff is just justification for what you think is increased value to the car. Service records are just be documentation of the car's condition - a few more items get ticked in the "Retail Ready" box rather than the "Average Condition" box. But you're never going to get a direct value applied to the service history.

Also remember, aftermarket upgrades are at best of zero value to the average appliance buyer, if not an actual loss due to the no-longer-stock nature of the car. That's why buying used race cars is so cheap; even to another enthusiast, installed stuff is worth about 25-30% of cost.

I'm not an insurance pro, but I've been through this twice in the last 6 weeks (see my comments on rentals above).

Another couple of sentances to be sure you are in the right frame of mind.

You will be getting the value to "replace" your Fit.
You are not "selling" your Fit.
You mention that you feel the car would be worth more to a buyer since it has full records. Again, this is not a "buyer" situation but replacement.
Search out on Autotrader and more (try autotempest) to find what you feel is an adequate replacement. You may feel that your car was a one-of-a-kind, and that may be true but the harsh reality is that you did not have one-of-a-kind insurance. That kind of insurance (agreed value or stated value) is available but it would have cost you more.

Your insurance is also "reimbursement"
If you have a car rental bill, you can get reimbursed.
If you have a storage lot bill, you can get reimbursed.
If you have neither (and there was no real expense for the days you did not have a rental) then you will get reimbursed that exact amount.

As for the extra set of rims, send the car away on the rims you like the least.
As for the extra parts, once the Fit is replaced, they are still your parts to do as you see...fit.

(Disclaimer: I am not in the business.)

This was back when I had state farm under my parents but 15 years ago they would give you like 20 dollars a day to not take the rental. That was a long time ago though and has probablly changed. Hopefully they aren't trying to low ball you too much. And I agree best thing would be to buy another fit to use your parts on

Since the other driver admitted fault, you should be pursuing his company first. As others have said, do your due diligence as far as value for replacement with a comparable vehicle. If you go through your company, you will have to wait for reimbursement of your deductible until your company collects from the other insurance.

Don49 wrote: Since the other driver admitted fault, you should be pursuing his company first. As others have said, do your due diligence as far as value for replacement with a comparable vehicle. If you go through your company, you will have to wait for reimbursement of your deductible until your company collects from the other insurance.

What he said. State Farm should only get involved if you start to get push back from the other persons Ins company.

As you know, I'm in the business, and have specialized in material damage for many years.

To answer your questions, yes and no as far as the maintenance adding value to the car. Yes in the respect that having proof of such a high level of maintenance will show that your car should be evaluated as being in excellent condition, as opposed to average or below average. No in the respect that if you just had an oil change done 3 days before the loss, they won't give the $39.95 (or whatever) you actually spent on the oil change. Oil changes are considered routine maintenance and are expected to have been done, but as I said before it would just speak towards the overall condition rating of the car. State Farm owes you the actual cash value of the car, in other words what would it have sold for in a private sale. With service records you have, it should be at the very high end of the bell curve.

No, you wouldn't be entitled to storage at your house. You can ask for loss of use for the fact that you didn't use rental with your car undrivable. It's the judgment of the adjuster from there, as technically it's not owed. Spare parts are not part of your insurance policy. They insure the car itself, not any extra parts you have, so yes you'll have to sell those on your own.

They aren't playing hardball. In fact, State Farm typically pays very well on physical damage claims. But they pay what they owe. Find the best kept examples of other Fits which are as similar to yours as you can, and that'll be a good baseline for the value of your car. Think of it this way. Had you sold your car privately the day before the accident, what would you have gotten for it? Realistically, you certainly would have gotten more than an average Fit, but probably not several thousand more.

Also, if you still can't come to an agreement, your policy should spell out what happens if you and State Farm don't agree. Typically, it's each party appoints an arbitrator and those two arbitrators agree on a neutral who will make a final decision. Honestly, in nearly 20 years, I've only seen it go that far once or twice...typically an agreement is reached between the customer and company long before.

You certainly can file with the other carrier if you wish, it's an option a lot of people use. Just keep in mind they have no contractual obligation with you. That is not to say they will try to low ball you, because that's not the case. But they have no contract with you and there is no arbitration clause.

I too would be dealing with the at fault party's insurance, I've had to do this twice now, once the car was repaired, the second time it was totaled. My insurance wasn't involved at all, but I was prepared to turn the issue over to them if need be.

On the totaled car, I did my homework before the adjuster came to our house, I knew the price range that our car was worth, between Craigslist, Autotrader, Cars.com, NADA, I knew what I should get. I suspected the car would be totaled all along, and when the adjuster confirmed it, their offer was in the range, but a little lower than what I thought was acceptable. I told the adjuster just that, he was in the ball park, but our car, like yours jimbob, was maintained by the book and in great shape prior to being totaled. I countered the adjusters offer, with a price I felt acceptable, within $500 of the top of similar cars in our area's price range, and about $1500 more than the original offer. The adjuster said okay, and after receiving the our car's title, wrote me a check for our agreed upon price.

Don49 wrote: Since the other driver admitted fault, you should be pursuing his company first. As others have said, do your due diligence as far as value for replacement with a comparable vehicle. If you go through your company, you will have to wait for reimbursement of your deductible until your company collects from the other insurance.

This^ And furthermore, you probably will now have a claim on your CLUE report now. Your agent should have helped identify fault, and pursue the other carrier for you.

Lots of good points above. You're only recourse is hunt Autotrader for "your car" i.e. miles ,options, and year are selling for. Compare that against the KBB value and plead your case.

I had to do this 2 years back and the efforts for my low mileage immaculate IS300 brought me an check for 10.5K vs 8k.

You won't end up whole but it's the best that can be expected.

I refuse to sink to the other option to get even which is sadly quite simple. Complain of injury on the spot at the accident and demand to be driven to the ER via ambulance. They'll cut you the rest of the check to make you whole but it won't cover the cost to your soul...

My wife got hit by a woman who ran a red light. Our insurance was with Horace Mann and they wouldn't even talk to me since it was the other party's fault. The other woman insurance paid to fix our car, but I was pissed at what Horace Mann did. I happended to talk with the State Farm agent that handled our homeowners insurance at that time and he took a long time to explain what my options were etc. Guess who got my insurance after the car was fixed. Also, the popo who worked the accident called us and told us to let them know if we were not happy how things turned out. One thing I thought was strange was we were not encouraged to appear in court if we were happy with the way the woman's insurance was handling the case. She likely got off with running a red light. At the wreck site she claimed my wife had run the red light. God bless the people who called the police later and gave the true story.