Let's Talk Car Insurance.

[WK91]

Originally Posted by mborner

I couldn't agree more! I work in the business of automotive and collision repair. I'll tell you a little secret about the biz:
BODY SHOPS DON'T REPAIR CARS, INSURANCE COMPANIES DO.

All insurance companies will dictate to the shops what they will and will not pay for, and how much they'll pay. That's why there are good insurance companies and bad insurance companies.

If you want your car repaired correctly, using OEM parts, don't get a cut-rate insurance company. A good insurance company (USAA comes to mind) will pretty much give the repair facility a blank check and say "fix it, and fix it properly".

A bad insurance company (Geico comes to mind) will slash the shops estimate to bare bones and the car will leave the shop "uncrashed", that's it. All labor times will be cut, paint times will be cut, chinese parts will be used and because of it, the quality of the repair will be sub-standard. God, the things I've seen Geico pull!! I've worked closely with them on their ARX program and nobody here would believe the stories I could tell.

Many shops where I live won't even take a Geico claim because they just refuse to pay for a proper repair.
You're afraid to call out a bad insurance company, I'm not.

USAA is a very good insurance company when it comes to taking care of their customers, but even they don’t authorize OEM parts on every repair. A decision on that takes into consideration how old the vehicle is. If your car is 10 years old, I don’t believe you are entitled to OEM parts.

Technically, non-OEM, or after market parts, are supposedly rated at the same specs as OEM parts. I’m not sure on this, as I’ve heard arguments on both sides of the discussion.

But some insurance companies, even if your car is new, will authorize non-OEM parts, which is not fair, in my opinion.

This is all spelled out in the insurance agreement, you know, that 75 page long document that nobody reads.

Anyway, I’ve had arguments with customers when they get angry about non-OEM parts. Then they threaten to sue, then we take a look at the agreement that THEY signed. They then realize they can’t sue, and then they threaten to move to company XYZ. I laugh inwardly as I know their policy on OEM parts is even more lax than my company..

Also, good insurance companies will guarantee non-OEM parts, so that is fair in my opinion, too.

But it is very important to choose a quality repair shop, too. Which this decision causes a lot of problems too. Some people like to take their car to a shop that charges outrageous prices, and then the insurance company won’t cover the entire cost of repair. I think this is fair, too, because of the fraud that is rampant in the industry. So always get an estimate first, or even have a damage inspector do the estimate.

[mborner]

Originally Posted by WK91

USAA is a very good insurance company when it comes to taking care of their customers, but even they don’t authorize OEM parts on every repair. A decision on that takes into consideration how old the vehicle is. If your car is 10 years old, I don’t believe you are entitled to OEM parts.

Technically, non-OEM, or after market parts, are supposedly rated at the same specs as OEM parts. I’m not sure on this, as I’ve heard arguments on both sides of the discussion.

But some insurance companies, even if your car is new, will authorize non-OEM parts, which is not fair, in my opinion.

This is all spelled out in the insurance agreement, you know, that 75 page long document that nobody reads.

Anyway, I’ve had arguments with customers when they get angry about non-OEM parts. Then they threaten to sue, then we take a look at the agreement that THEY signed. They then realize they can’t sue, and then they threaten to move to company XYZ. I laugh inwardly as I know their policy on OEM parts is even more lax than my company..

Also, good insurance companies will guarantee non-OEM parts, so that is fair in my opinion, too.

But it is very important to choose a quality repair shop, too. Which this decision causes a lot of problems too. Some people like to take their car to a shop that charges outrageous prices, and then the insurance company won’t cover the entire cost of repair. I think this is fair, too, because of the fraud that is rampant in the industry. So always get an estimate first, or even have a damage inspector do the estimate.

You bring up some very good points, and I agree with most of them. However, even CAPA certified aftermarket parts are garbage. They require extra time for fitting. An aftermarket headlight won't match the other OEM side exactly. UV rays fade them more quickly and the sheet metal, well, I just don't know how to describe the garbage that Geico makes shops use in their repairs. I've been doing this professionally for so long that I would refuse aftermarket parts on my own car. If I could not get my insurance company to bend, I would pay the difference out of my own pocket.
Here's the thing, though. All insurance companies have aftermarket parts written into their policies, even the best ones. The policies all read the same; "we may use aftermarket parts". If my 5 year old Accord got into an accident and my insurance company wrote aftermarket parts into the estimate, which I'm sure they would, a simple phone call to my agent explaining that I work in the business and I understand the degraded value of aftermarket parts, there's a very good chance they would be flexible with my request. I can guarantee you, you would never get such concessions from Geico. Believe me, I've seen it a hundred times.
Now, if you are the claimant, and are using the insurance company of the driver that hit you, you hold all the cards. You can pretty much tell the insurance company how you want your car fixed, and they should oblige, even Geico.

[WK91]

Originally Posted by mborner

You bring up some very good points, and I agree with most of them. However, even CAPA certified aftermarket parts are garbage. They require extra time for fitting. An aftermarket headlight won't match the other OEM side exactly. UV rays fade them more quickly and the sheet metal, well, I just don't know how to describe the garbage that Geico makes shops use in their repairs. I've been doing this professionally for so long that I would refuse aftermarket parts on my own car. If I could not get my insurance company to bend, I would pay the difference out of my own pocket.
Here's the thing, though. All insurance companies have aftermarket parts written into their policies, even the best ones. The policies all read the same; "we may use aftermarket parts". If my 5 year old Accord got into an accident and my insurance company wrote aftermarket parts into the estimate, which I'm sure they would, a simple phone call to my agent explaining that I work in the business and I understand the degraded value of aftermarket parts, there's a very good chance they would be flexible with my request. I can guarantee you, you would never get such concessions from Geico. Believe me, I've seen it a hundred times.
Now, if you are the claimant, and are using the insurance company of the driver that hit you, you hold all the cards. You can pretty much tell the insurance company how you want your car fixed, and they should oblige, even Geico.

On the one hand, what you stated makes perfect sense. The non-OEM parts can’t be as good as the OEM parts. That’s seems obvious. But I’ve had supposed experts tell me that they are rated just as good, sometimes even better than the OEM parts. I took this with a grain of salt because I just don’t know what their angle is. So I tend to agree that non-OEM parts aren’t as good, but to be honest, I don’t have that expertise, so I don’t like to say definitively one way or the other. I’ll leave that for people that know, and you seem to be a person that does know.

I also agree that a claimant from another company does hold more cards and can get some extra allowances on some things, but they can’t get too crazy with their demands. I’ve seen my old company flat out deny unreasonable requests from claimants.

But getting back to auto repair, we always tried to get our customers, and even claimants, to use our affiliated body shops. I know this sounds like the insurance company was trying to put one over on the customers, but I didn’t see any extra complaints about shoddy repair from shops in our network, and actually, a shop in our network was much easier to deal with when a customer wasn’t satisfied with the initial work. They seemed more interested in making right.

Wow, all this chatting about insurance is making me miss my old job just a bit. Of course, I’d never leave my current job, but insurance was interesting, that’s for sure. Most people are reasonable and my goal was to have professional conversations all day long. But there would always be a certain percentage who were just unreasonable, unprofessional, and felt that it was their right to try and recoup all the premiums they had paid over the years. They made the job very difficult, and sometimes soul crushing.

[PhoenixSomeday]

Originally Posted by WK91

...
But getting back to auto repair, we always tried to get our customers, and even claimants, to use our affiliated body shops. I know this sounds like the insurance company was trying to put one over on the customers, but I didn’t see any extra complaints about shoddy repair from shops in our network, and actually, a shop in our network was much easier to deal with when a customer wasn’t satisfied with the initial work. They seemed more interested in making right.
...

Well yeah, that's a given for me. I've always done this. I have enough fights elsewhere in life that I don't need to deal with that crap for repairs via car insurance. They can be in cahoots all they want, as long as I'm only paying the correct deductible, who cares. I have them give me a list of shops they deal with / authorize and I pick one. Whether it's justified or not, I feel confident that it'll go smoothly*. I really don't have the wherewithal to fight them because I want to take my car to my buddy JimBob's shop or something, "who does the absolute best work anywhere, ever".

*: And so far it always has, although the place in Pasadena didn't reconnect my A/C, so I had to drive from there to here in mid July with no A/C 4 years ago. I called Geico when I got back, as I noticed a couple of other things wrong too, and they sent me to another shop locally, who actually finished the repairs correctly. If I had picked my own shop when the accident happened in Pasadena, I'm sure I would have heard "well, you picked the shop and they aren't in our network, so that's kind of on you man...". No thanks.

[Nasudesu]

Originally Posted by KO Stradivarius

That's pretty low, especially with a new truck like that, and in the Bay Area. Is this for a year, or only 6 months? My daughter has Geico and I think they normally do 6 month policies? That's about half as much as I pay for a year for two less valuable cars in the Phoenix area, similar to what MN-Born-N-Raised, JaredC, and PhoenixSomeday are paying. We're the only ones that have stated their rates. So just spitballing your 2 cars for a year should be about 2x as much as you're paying. Just curious. Thanks.

One year or $550 per 6 months. Zero accident or ticket for me and one ticket and one minor accident for my husband when he was still in his 20’s. We no longer commute since retiring. But even when still working, my commute was 6 miles one way and my husband 3 miles one way.