Vehicle Accident Questions

LevelWing

LevelWing

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LevelWing
I was recently in an accident with my truck (everyone is fine) and I got the repair estimate from the collision center today. It's a decent amount but nowhere near enough to total the truck. I was not at fault so I'm good to go with my insurance and what not. The truck will lose a lot of its value (it was a 2013) and I want to reclaim some of that through a diminished value claim with the other person's insurance. How does a diminished value claim work? I would imagine (I'm sure I'm wrong) that they'll take the value of the vehicle before the accident (truck had zero damage), what it's worth now and cut me a check for the difference. For example if the truck was worth $30,000 before the accident and is now worth $20,000 they'll cut me a check for $10,000. How does it actually work?

After the truck is repaired I plan to just trade it in and get a new truck and would like to know ahead of time how much I'm going to be in the hole as a result of the lost value. I currently owe less than the pre-accident value, so that helps a little.
 
I've never heard of that in insurance before. I can see that in a court case, but where are you seeing this in a binder?
 
If your insurance company is fixing your vehicle then there is no diminished value claim. Insurance is to bring you back to what you had before the loss. "A vehicle with no damage". This may vary in each state, but WI has nothing called a diminished value claim. Are you thinking of GAP insurance? GAP will cover the difference between what you owe the bank and what the value of the vehicle is if there is a total loss situation and you owe more than it's worth. A vehicle can sometimes be considered a total loss when the damage to the vehicle is 60% or more than the value. So says my wife who works in insurance and just typed this.
 
Unit74 said:
I've never heard of that in insurance before. I can see that in a court case, but where are you seeing this in a binder?
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I didn't know this existed until I had the accident. Diminished Value

JB1842 said:
If your insurance company is fixing your vehicle then there is no diminished value claim. Insurance is to bring you back to what you had before the loss. "A vehicle with no damage". This may vary in each state, but WI has nothing called a diminished value claim. Are you thinking of GAP insurance? GAP will cover the difference between what you owe the bank and what the value of the vehicle is if there is a total loss situation and you owe more than it's worth. A vehicle can sometimes be considered a total loss when the damage to the vehicle is 60% or more than the value. So says my wife who works in insurance and just typed this.
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I'm not thinking of GAP insurance. Here's a few different links to diminished value claims. From some of the articles it doesn't appear that I'm going to get hardly anything. So much for replacing the value that was lost. Since it's coming from the other person's insurance I know they're going to try and reduce the claim as much as possible.

http://kielichlawfirm.com/insurance-companies-calculate-diminished-value-claims/

http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Diminished-Value

http://www.ican2000.com/dvfaqs.html
 
This is a fairly recent concept, mostly because after another year of driving your "damage history" is by and large lost. Now with computer databases such as Carfax it becomes possible that an insurance payout might be on record and cause some actual possibly quantifiable loss in value. There are a whole slew of pop up companies out there that do the appraisal to determine what the LOV amount is.

Of course, if you're insured for such, your insurer most likely has rules on how they want this done. They will take care of subrogating for both the repairs and LOV against the other party.

If you don't have LOV coverage and want to go after the other party, be careful. Your insurer likely has first dibs on any money recovered. People think that they can just go sue for the deductible or the LOV, but you need to actually recover the full some so you can reimburse your insurer.
 
Call a dealership and get an estimate from their body shop and what its worth trading it in on whatever vehicle you want. You may do better that way than getting it fixed at shop X and then going to dealership Y to dump it.
 
Personally, I think you're better off getting it repaired to the extent possible vs. totaling it. If the vehicle is totaled, you will get some sort of blue book value which probably will not replace it in kind. If it's repaired, the more damage the better, as those parts will be new.
 
Diminished value definitely exists, but not for 1st party insurance (the insurance you pay for to protect yourself). If the other person's insurance is paying the claim, you claim it with them.

The argument is you had a car worth 30k at the beginning, it is now worth 20k, you suffered an economic loss of 10k...you're going to have to fight for it because the adjusters are not going to want to pay it.

Also make sure everyone gets cleared by a medical professional before you say there were no injuries. I know plenty of people that start hurting a few weeks after an accident but in many states you cannot claim any damages if you aren't seen by a doctor in a reasonable amount of time after the accident. Claim the doctor visit on the claim as well.
 
Also keep in mind that when the claim's adjuster presents you the number, you're totally within your rights to
  1. ask for an explanation of how they determined the number. As in, "...pretend I'm you're 5 year old nephew. Explain how you started with the truck and the accident event, and finished with the dollar amount you just told me"
  2. negotiate the final number. Remember, their title is "Claims Adjuster", and their goal is to adjust the paid out amount as low as possible. Many carriers are banking on their insureds being sheeple and accepting what they are told.
You may not get the current claims adjuster to work this "diminished value", but you might get them to make the amount paid out more to your liking.
 
mrkbbd said:
The argument is you had a car worth 30k at the beginning, it is now worth 20k, you suffered an economic loss of 10k...you're going to have to fight for it because the adjusters are not going to want to pay it.
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I remember a discussion about classic muscle cars relating to this topic and what you just said. The object car was a highly desirable MOPAR with 100% matching numbers and very low miles. Value of the car was stated between $100k and $200k.

Discussion included the concept of "stated value" coverage so if an accident occurred, the higher value would be considered.

But the discussion also covered what the value of the car would be when repaired. Even if correct and unused OEM parts could be sourced, the vehicle loses it's "matching numbers" status and big chunk of the value.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what was said about covering this loss. But what is under discussion (Diminished Value) isn't a new concept and somewhere someone has the best info and answer for LevelWing's situation.
 
Unless it was really hit hard, and I mean by a train, your truck should not lose $10K in value from an accident if properly repaired.
Insurance companies and state insurance commissioners have various policies depending on where you live. My rule of thumb and it's just mine, is 10-20% of the repair cost. So a $7500 repair cost would equate to $750-1500.00 in diminished value.
Contact the dealer that you are planning on trading with and ask them directly, give them a copy of the estimate and they can give you a pretty accurate figure on what they think it's worth now vs no damage. It's a bit like damage history on an airplane, some is known and disclosed and some isn't.;)

LevelWing said:
I was recently in an accident with my truck (everyone is fine) and I got the repair estimate from the collision center today. It's a decent amount but nowhere near enough to total the truck. I was not at fault so I'm good to go with my insurance and what not. The truck will lose a lot of its value (it was a 2013) and I want to reclaim some of that through a diminished value claim with the other person's insurance. How does a diminished value claim work? I would imagine (I'm sure I'm wrong) that they'll take the value of the vehicle before the accident (truck had zero damage), what it's worth now and cut me a check for the difference. For example if the truck was worth $30,000 before the accident and is now worth $20,000 they'll cut me a check for $10,000. How does it actually work?

After the truck is repaired I plan to just trade it in and get a new truck and would like to know ahead of time how much I'm going to be in the hole as a result of the lost value. I currently owe less than the pre-accident value, so that helps a little.
Click to expand...
 
I'm actually going through this as we speak. My 3 week old car with less than 2K miles was T -boned by an elderly person who shouldn't have been driving in the first place.

In my situation, I am dealing directly with the other parties insurance to submit my DV claim. The amount you will be able to recover varies based on the several variables such as the year of your car, mileage and damage history. Go look up the 17C formula to get a ballpark of what you should expect.

I initially submitted my claim based on doing a KBB of my car with and then without the damage history. The insurance wouldn't accept that so I had to go to a licensed appraiser to do a LOV appraisal. I believe I paid around $200 for the appraisal.

The insurance company hasn't responded yet with an offer but I am told to expect an initial offer of about 50% of the LOV claim. From there you can negotiate a settlement.
 
Mark, Mike and John have nailed it for you.

And THIS! ! ! ===>
mrkbbd said:
Also make sure everyone gets cleared by a medical professional before you say there were no injuries.
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AggieMike88 said:
Also keep in mind that when the claim's adjuster presents you the number, you're totally within your rights to
  1. ask for an explanation of how they determined the number. As in, "...pretend I'm you're 5 year old nephew. Explain how you started with the truck and the accident event, and finished with the dollar amount you just told me"
  2. negotiate the final number. Remember, their title is "Claims Adjuster", and their goal is to adjust the paid out amount as low as possible. Many carriers are banking on their insureds being sheeple and accepting what they are told.
You may not get the current claims adjuster to work this "diminished value", but you might get them to make the amount paid out more to your liking.
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Thanks for the information. I've put a call into the other person's insurance but I have a feeling it's going to be a pain getting them to return my calls since they likely don't want to pay anything out to begin with.


N747JB said:
Unless it was really hit hard, and I mean by a train, your truck should not lose $10K in value from an accident if properly repaired.
Insurance companies and state insurance commissioners have various policies depending on where you live. My rule of thumb and it's just mine, is 10-20% of the repair cost. So a $7500 repair cost would equate to $750-1500.00 in diminished value.
Contact the dealer that you are planning on trading with and ask them directly, give them a copy of the estimate and they can give you a pretty accurate figure on what they think it's worth now vs no damage. It's a bit like damage history on an airplane, some is known and disclosed and some isn't.;)
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The $10,000 was just an example. I haven no idea how much value was lost. What I'm concerned about is when I go to trade the truck in, the dealership will have a significantly different view of how much value was lost compared to what the insurance company says. I currently have positive equity in the truck and I'm concerned that beacuse of what the dealership will offer, I'll be upside down by quite a bit, even with whatever the DV claim gives me.

Walsh029 said:
I'm actually going through this as we speak. My 3 week old car with less than 2K miles was T -boned by an elderly person who shouldn't have been driving in the first place.

In my situation, I am dealing directly with the other parties insurance to submit my DV claim. The amount you will be able to recover varies based on the several variables such as the year of your car, mileage and damage history. Go look up the 17C formula to get a ballpark of what you should expect.

I initially submitted my claim based on doing a KBB of my car with and then without the damage history. The insurance wouldn't accept that so I had to go to a licensed appraiser to do a LOV appraisal. I believe I paid around $200 for the appraisal.

The insurance company hasn't responded yet with an offer but I am told to expect an initial offer of about 50% of the LOV claim. From there you can negotiate a settlement.
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I've looked into the 17C formula and the legal precedent behind it and from everything I can tell, it's a completely arbitrary number with no meaning behind it. Again, this goes back to trading the vehicle in. Also, since I won't have the vehicle back for several more weeks, it's pointless to talk to a dealership since they won't have any idea until they see it (unless they're willing to look up the VIN number).
 
In Georgia there is a diminished value claim. A repaired vehicle is worth less than it was before the wreck. You are entitled to recover this " diminished" value amount. Even from your own insurance. This can very from state to state though the majority of states follow this theory.
 
This is in addition to the cost of repairs.
 
A genuinely valid claim; some carriers will adjust pretty readily, others will stonewall you. I had a client who paid me to go to Austin and try a case against the driver of the other car (the actual defendant) because the guy's insurer would not make a good-faith offer of diminished value. I hired a diminished value expert, won.
 
SCCutler said:
A genuinely valid claim; some carriers will adjust pretty readily, others will stonewall you. I had a client who paid me to go to Austin and try a case against the driver of the other car (the actual defendant) because the guy's insurer would not make a good-faith offer of diminished value. I hired a diminished value expert, won.
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My concern with hiring someone to do this estimate is that I'll end up spending a few hundred and end up only getting a few hundred in the claim. I talked to the other person's insurance company who said I had to wait until the vehicle is fixed to file the claim. Not sure if this is true, but I'm still looking into it.
 
My wife an I were in this exact situation about a year and a half ago.

Exactly 12 months after we purchased our SUV, she was rear ended. Cause about $6,500 in damage.

I contacted the other driver's insurance about diminished value. Their initial offer was $250 plus $100 for "our inconvenience". I told them to buzz off and I'll be back with more evidence for their second chance to make a reasonable offer.

I went to Carmax and had an appraisal done and sent in that information with a couple of ads from dealers for our exact model car without damage.

The difference between the two numbers was approximately $5,000.

I sent a certified letter to the adjuster requesting a payment of this amount.

They called and said that they couldn't go any higher than $2,500 as that was the maximum payout under the other drivers policy for property damage. We settled for that amount plus $350 for personal injury. My wife and I both missed some work on the day of the accident to get her home and the vehicle towed.

I've condensed the story quite a bit, it took almost 12 months of back and forth emails, dozens of phone calls, etc. Mostly because the original adjuster left the company and I had to start all over with a new one.

If you want to discuss more, please PM me. I may have some of the documents I used saved and the documents the insurance agency sent us.
 
N801BH said:
First post.....

Welcome to POA...

:cheers:
Click to expand...

Thank you...

I've been lurking for a long time...

This was a post that is in an area that I had a lot of questions over the last year so hopefully I can help. :yes:
 
hockeyrcks9901 said:
My wife an I were in this exact situation about a year and a half ago.



Exactly 12 months after we purchased our SUV, she was rear ended. Cause about $6,500 in damage.



I contacted the other driver's insurance about diminished value. Their initial offer was $250 plus $100 for "our inconvenience". I told them to buzz off and I'll be back with more evidence for their second chance to make a reasonable offer.



I went to Carmax and had an appraisal done and sent in that information with a couple of ads from dealers for our exact model car without damage.



The difference between the two numbers was approximately $5,000.



I sent a certified letter to the adjuster requesting a payment of this amount.



They called and said that they couldn't go any higher than $2,500 as that was the maximum payout under the other drivers policy for property damage. We settled for that amount plus $350 for personal injury. My wife and I both missed some work on the day of the accident to get her home and the vehicle towed.



I've condensed the story quite a bit, it took almost 12 months of back and forth emails, dozens of phone calls, etc. Mostly because the original adjuster left the company and I had to start all over with a new one.



If you want to discuss more, please PM me. I may have some of the documents I used saved and the documents the insurance agency sent us.
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I really hope this process doesn't go on for nearly a year. It doesn't look like I'll be getting 100% of the lost value but hopefully I can get at least some of it back. I've decided that I'm going to get rid of the truck and get a new one as soon as it's fixed. I may end up having to get the new truck before the DV claim is completed though my concern is that I will no longer have a claim if I don't own the truck anymore. It'll all come down to timing.
 
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