Last night's hail storm left some damage to my car. I'm with Progressive and I've never filed any sort of claim with any insurance company. (+10 years Accident Free!) I have full coverage and I have a $500 deductible. Couple questions I filed a claim..what usually happens next? What are the chances that the ins company will total the car since there is damage all over? Does the insurance give the Blue Book or Black Book value..or do they just pretty much come up with their own estimate? I hear that sometimes the insurance company will give you an offer to buy the car back. For an 04 WRX in good condition w/ 86k miles, how much do you think the buy back would be? What else do I need to keep in mind when dealing with the ins company?
They will contact you. Hail damage depend on severity. Low as $500 and as high as I would think $4000. Unless your car is beat to crap and I doubt your low mileage 04 is....it won't be totalled.
Not always when it's you and your company. Other people's company will screw ya if both parties are not the same provider. You just had bad luck due to a string of accidents in a short term putting you at 'high' risk.
1. Your car will NOT be totaled for Hail Damage. 2. The insurance company will send an adjuster out to inspect the damage and begin the claim process. 3. They will offer you an option to take the car to a repair place of their choosing to repair your hail damage. You can either accept this or reject it and request that you take it to a shop of your choosing. 4. If you go with the latter, they will write you a check for the amount the adjuster feels is appropriate to repair your car. If you take it to your own shop, and they say the damage is more than the check written, you will be responsible to pay the difference out of your pocket. If you go to the repair shop the insurance company recommends, and the damage is estimated at more than the adjuster noted in the claim, they will make adjustments and pay the remaining balance, the only thing is that the shop they may send you to may do shitty work. There will be no option to buy back the car as it will not be totaled for cosmetic hail damage. What to be on the lookout for with your insurance company: Your premium may go up due to filing this claim, however, most likely it won't because you have a good clean record, and this was not an accident of your fault. I will suggest this though. If you do not have a garage to keep your car in, do not get the repairs done now. If you don't have a garage, I would ask the insurance company to either note the damage on your account for you to request repair or a check at a later time, or have them cut you a check now, cash and deposit the check and just live with your car the way it is until you have a garage to park in to protect from the next hail storm we will get in a couple of months, or less.
Negative. You get a quote from the shop first before the adjuster sees it if you want your own place to do it. You discuss the cost with the adjuster. I just went through this with my wife's car. Had 2 quotes from two acceptable shops I wanted to use. Both were within $100 of each other on their quotes. Adjuster said no way no how. Fought and argued till they agreed to do the extra....but they wrote the check for the extra directly to the shop which didn't matter to me....I just wanted the car fixed and fixed right....not money in my pocket.
Let's say I do go with this option and I take a check. Will the ins write me a personal check or do they write a check to the business that will 'supposedly' do the work?
Actually it could go either way. They will most likely try to make the check out to the shop you state you will be taking the car to. But, if you ask them, they will write it out to you instead. I had hail damage several years ago, and claimed it on my insurance. The adjuster came out to my work to inspect the car, told me they were busy with lots of claims from the hail storm, and that they would send my car to X. I told them that I didn't have a garage and feared that I would be calling in a couple of months to file another claim for the same issue, so instead, can they just write me the check, and once I have a garage to protect my car, I can get the repairs done. 3 1/2 years later, I still haven't gotten the repairs done. My car is covered in little tiny dents that when the car is clean, drive me crazy, when dirty, you can barely see. I would have claimed hail damage another 3 times at least since then.