Re: 164S Totaled

[Nicky Avery <nicky@domain.elided>]

Vasco,

Bad luck! It may or may not have been better for you to hit the other
car: it depends where you may have managed to hit it and what would have
happened to the other driver. Suppose you had hit some part of the rear
and the elderly driver had had a heart attack .... You did the right
thing.

It's an economic decision for the insurer: how to lose the least amount
of money. It also depends on your policy - replacement or present value.
Do you already have a right to the car?

For them a heavily damaged 1991 164S is obviously a candidate for a
total loss. All they now have to consider is how little to offer you
and, when you protest, how much higher to go. *We* all know that what
looks like a 10 year old car with little value, is often a very good car
in very good condition. Further, we can't just go out down the street
and get another in similar shape. To replace a 164 with anything similar
new will cost $35-40K. *They* just know what their book says is the
value and they aren't looking at retail.

I think you have two tasks. You want to try to avoid the car being
totalled officially so you don't end up with a salvage title. The second
is (as already suggested) to get the adjuster to understand that the
valuation is wrong. Just because a dealer will only give $800 for it,
doesn't make it worth only $800.

Assuming you don't have a right to keep the car, you don't want to have
to buy back what you already own. If you ask for the car up front, they
will insist it's worth the $800. However, if you keep the car, you are
doing them a favor: they don't need to become the proud owners of a
10-year old wreck. It's worth a certain amount of money to them to avoid
this. If you can't get around them totalling it, leave aside the
question of its fate until you have pushed them as far as you can on the
valuation and then ask for the car.

HTH

Nicky

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