Yeh, Sad Day. Rare IDI E Gone.

[Devilish]

My knowledge of insurance companies comes from personal experience I got screwed years ago by Allstate when a drunk driver hit my car dolly and my pickup truck and was arrested but the owner of the car tonight allowing him to drive the car funny thing was though the next day the drunk driver was out of jail and he and the owner of the car went and picked it up with the tow company in the drunk driver drove away. I learned from that and started fighting the insurance companies to the nail not something that happens right away my claims would take to sometimes 3 years I was in no rush but I managed to take a $300 van and make it into $5200. I also got paid $7,000 on $1,000 Mercedes that's just to name a few. Once a friend asked me to come into the insurance company with her. She wanted to do a buyback on her car and they were offering it to her to crazy insane price. I brought in results from the local salvage auction and negotiated her price down to lessen half of what they were trying to get and the woman was screaming at me "where did you get that paperwork you're not supposed to have that paperwork!" It's no wonder that the actual claims handler in the office is actually hundreds of miles away from where you're at. I had a claim ******* from Oklahoma City and I'm in Nevada and he would not talk to me I was only able to talk to a supervisor and his supervisor even used words like if you were a better person. Yeah I scared them 2 years later when they realized I was ready to file a lawsuit for unfair business practices.

 

[Devilish]

One thing for people to be aware of in the case of the Mercedes I had to sue the trucking company to get paid which of course they didn't show up. I got paid by default. Progressive cut me a check but then they also put a negative in my clue report so when I went shopping for insurance it was sky high. I had to file a dispute with the company that handles clue to get that removed is when I talked to progressive they refused to do it. Basically what I'm saying is where you keep an eye on your credit and get a report like once a year same thing with c.l.u.e

 

[ttman4]

My son got T-***** last yr in his 2000 Toyota, other guy got ticket. Other guy insurance man called my son & chatted a bit with him, but at bad time, son was really busy so he told the guy "I got to go." Insurance man said "OK, oh BTW, how fast you going?" Son replied "Oh I don't know, bout 30 maybe."
Turned out since it was in a 25 MPH Zone they only paid 50% because he said 30!!!!
Wish he'd told me bout it back then instead of recently.....

 

[jrollf]

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I'd swear that the insurance companies are in some sort of cahoots with the federal government to take and destroy any older vehicles. When I t-***** a lady that pulled out in front of me in my '85 f-350the state patrolman got really angry that I called my own tow truck and would not let their contracted impound tow truck take it. Then the persons insurance company said they would have to take my truck away and I would not be getting it back and that I was to immediately surrender the title to them. I had my lawyer deal with it as at that time I was still driving the truck and needed it on the road. I wound up having to sue the person I hit to get the money for repairing my truck and their insurance company harassed me for almost a year afterwards still trying to take my truck. I am quite sure today they would have just taken the truck and left me with no choice but to surrender it to them. Stinks about your van though I think I'd have tried to sell it to an individual vs the salvage yard.

No insurance can "legally" force you to give up your vehicle. They may declare it "totaled" and if you choose to keep it, they can send you a check for the value of the vehicle minus the "salvage value" that they loose by you not giving them the vehicle.

I have come to realize one of the reasons insurance companies push so hard to "total" and take some older vehciles, like OBS and Brick Nose Fords, is the dirty little secret that they are worth more for parts/scrap then they are per blue book used sales value. As a result they want to "total" your truck, give you a check for the "blue book value" then send it to the salvage auctions where they often get all their money back, and sometimes even make a profit. But since you don't own the truck anymore they get to pocket the profit.

 

[Devilish]

Newer vehicles tend to be mandated by a rule of 55%, so if if the cost to repair damage to a vehicle exceeds 55% of value then they total the car. A lot of times the insurance companies use the 55% rule even though they're not mandated to use it on the older vehicles now they're trying to save a buck so if they can total a vehicle and recoup some of the money on the back end and it ends up that it cost them less than to originally repair the car they consider that a win. Now an exception to the rule is if the airbag system goes off a lot of times the insurance company will just total the vehicle automatically because they don't want the risk of liability of having the airbag system fixed and then it does not function properly a second time