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thanks for you advice we thought about offering her $200, but like I said I could of used my insurance and had no deductible that is what makes me so mad.
First off, if you used your insurance you would then have a claim and pay a lot more than $600 in higher premiums over the next 5 years it would be on your record.
Second, people have a year to put a claim in and if she tell her insurance about the previous dent, her insurance company will go after your insurance company for reimbursement and there's nothing you can do about it!.
Third, you hit her car and you know you did! Give her the money and be done with it! A dent can easlity cost over $1K so $600 is not far fetched.
Now, if the neighbor had a sign above the car saying something like "we are trying to get rid of this car as soon as possible. Thus, we are OK if it gets damaged."*, that would be an interesting case. Also, even if there was not legal obligation to pay for the repairs, many would see there is a moral/ethical obligation to do so.
*unlikely scenario but unlikely is far different than it never happening.
Insurance adjusters can tell if there was previous damage and will deduct the amount from the claim.
I'm also a little surprised they can do that. It's entirely possible the totaled car was sold to a salvage yard where the dent probably ended up costing nobody anything, so it kind of comes across as the shysters at the insurance company using any excuse they can find not to pay the full claim and make their customer whole.
Anyway, he should pay the neighbor obviously, and good god I'd hate to be the next car that person owns.
I was backing out of my driveway and my neighbors car was parked along the front of their house and I accidentally hit their car and told them to take it down to an auto body shop and we would take care of the cost to fix the small dent. They never brought the car down and it has been about 5 months now so we assumed it was their intention to let it go as it wasn't that bad.
The other day we found out the car was totaled in an accident and the insurance deducted $600 for the prior dent on the side of the car and now she is looking for the $600 from us.
My problem with this whole situation is that the auto body shop is a friend of mine and would of probably fixed the dent for much less and the fact that had she brought it down to the auto body shop for an estimate and it was too much I would have used my insurance on the property damage claim part of my insurance which has no deductible.
I really don't think I should have to pay since she never pursued the dent before the total and don't even know if she would of done anything.
I also must state that after this incident but before they totaled the car, I did notice another small dent in the car which was not my fault.
What should I do?
Insurance doesn't really work that way. If the car was a total loss even with your dent subtracted from the value its moot. There is no "deduction" unless her policy paid for that repair and the owner didn't do the work...in which case, the insurance company wants its money back.
The actual cash value of the car is based on its overall condition...certainly not something that can be established from just one dent.
I think either your neighbor is confused or is deceiving you as to why the deduction was made.
Besides, nothing was stopping her from putting a claim in for the repair under her own policy, then the insurance company would have owed HER money for the damages (which they would have been entitled to collect from you). So you can tell her:
1. Put a claim in on her insurance for the dent under her Collision policy
2. Or she can put a claim in on YOUR insurance for the dent under YOUR liability policy.
But there is no reason for you to pay out of pocket for deductions her adjuster is just making up. They are just trying to do anything they can to reduce their payouts. But you don't have to go along with it.
Don't give her any money. Let the insurance companies battle it out, that's what you paid them for.
Insurance doesn't really work that way. If the car was a total loss even with your dent subtracted from the value its moot. There is no "deduction" unless her policy paid for that repair and the owner didn't do the work...in which case, the insurance company wants its money back.
The actual cash value of the car is based on its overall condition...certainly not something that can be established from just one dent.
I think either your neighbor is confused or is deceiving you as to why the deduction was made.
Besides, nothing was stopping her from putting a claim in for the repair under her own policy, then the insurance company would have owed HER money for the damages (which they would have been entitled to collect from you). So you can tell her:
1. Put a claim in on her insurance for the dent under her Collision policy
2. Or she can put a claim in on YOUR insurance for the dent under YOUR liability policy.
But there is no reason for you to pay out of pocket for deductions her adjuster is just making up. They are just trying to do anything they can to reduce their payouts. But you don't have to go along with it.
Don't give her any money. Let the insurance companies battle it out, that's what you paid them for.
And have a claim on your insurance for $600? Bad advice!
I'm also a little surprised they can do that. It's entirely possible the totaled car was sold to a salvage yard where the dent probably ended up costing nobody anything, so it kind of comes across as the shysters at the insurance company using any excuse they can find not to pay the full claim and make their customer whole.
Anyway, he should pay the neighbor obviously, and good god I'd hate to be the next car that person owns.
No, I worked at one time at a body shop, and these adjusters are not fools. For example, if a car is totaled in a front end collision, and there are dents in the back, they are not going to pay for that. They only pay for what was a result of the claim they are investigating.
One time I backed out of a parking spot in a grocery store, and another guy was backing up right behind me, coming the opposite direction. We bumped into each other in the middle of the lot, and, luckily we both had the same insurance company. When they appraised the damage, they only held him at 40% being at fault, but held me at 60%, because they surveyed the damage and felt I hit him more than he hit me. Just the way it is done.
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