When an insurance company totals a car for economic reasons

[JustAPal00]

OH! And I guess the part about manipulating the ad prices went completly over your head!

 

[curious100]

No, I think it is you who has no Idea! I never told you to settle, I told you that if you wanted to keep your car you would have to pay the salvage value. I never said what it should be, just that if your car was totaled and you received the fair market value for it, then it was no longer yours. You were the one who just couldn't grasp that notion!!! You posted on here that the insurance company totaled your car for economic reasons, and wanted to deduct some of your money because you wanted to keep your car! What don't you understand??? ONE MORE TIME REAL SLOWLY ! ! When an insurance company totals your car, they buy it from you for the fair market value! You do have the first right to buy it back for the salvage value. No one on this site ever told you how much your car was worth, or what the salvage value should be! You just couldn't grasp the fact that when a car is totaled you had to give some of the money back to keep your car!!!

You are 10 steps behind. What I posted yesterday was an UPDATE of how everything turned out--no complaining about paying salvage for my car being totaled and having to buy it back. CAN YOU READ? I see now why so many posters tell others to ignore what you say. I used to think they were a little unkind, but now I see exactly what they're talking about!!

 

[curious100]

OH! And I guess the part about manipulating the ad prices went completly over your head!

Are you for real? WHATEVER.

To quote the great Mo: Take your blathering somewhere else!

 

[JustAPal00]

No, you didn’t just update us on what happened, go back and read posts 39 & 40. When you started this thread you had no concept of what was going on in the claims process, as evident in this quote from post #1 “However, since we want to keep it, the insurance company is now reducing the settlement offer by another $458 to make-up for the fact that they cannot sell off the parts. So, that makes their settlement offer about $1250 below what we believe the value of the truck is.“ In this statement the math you use indicates that you think that the insurance company should pay you the full value of your truck, and then let you keep it thus profiting from the accident!

As far as where the values of the vehicles comes from. Of course eBay sales prices come into the picture. All sales within your area will help to create an approximate value of your vehicle. Ads on the other hand will not! What a person is asking for a vehicle is irrelevant, what a person is willing to pay is what matters. This goes to my point of manipulation of the value by placing bogus ads. Lets say you have an old truck that you no longer need. You might place fake ads in all the surrounding papers and auto locators for similar trucks asking high prices. You now have plenty of comps that would get you more than your truck is worth. No insurance company or bank would ever use advertised (asking) price for their valuation. In your case they may have been referring to them to show you that your value was even higher then people were asking!

As far as your point of insurance companies lowballing (erring on the conservative side). Of course they do! Did you just figure this out? They wouldn’t be in business very long if they were overly generous! Thus, the lesson you should take away from all of this is “The squeaky wheel gets the grease!”

 

[curious100]

No, you didn’t just update us on what happened, go back and read posts 39 & 40. When you started this thread you had no concept of what was going on in the claims process, as evident in this quote from post #1 “However, since we want to keep it, the insurance company is now reducing the settlement offer by another $458 to make-up for the fact that they cannot sell off the parts. So, that makes their settlement offer about $1250 below what we believe the value of the truck is.“ In this statement the math you use indicates that you think that the insurance company should pay you the full value of your truck, and then let you keep it thus profiting from the accident!

As far as where the values of the vehicles comes from. Of course eBay sales prices come into the picture. All sales within your area will help to create an approximate value of your vehicle. Ads on the other hand will not! What a person is asking for a vehicle is irrelevant, what a person is willing to pay is what matters. This goes to my point of manipulation of the value by placing bogus ads. Lets say you have an old truck that you no longer need. You might place fake ads in all the surrounding papers and auto locators for similar trucks asking high prices. You now have plenty of comps that would get you more than your truck is worth. No insurance company or bank would ever use advertised (asking) price for their valuation. In your case they may have been referring to them to show you that your value was even higher then people were asking!

As far as your point of insurance companies lowballing (erring on the conservative side). Of course they do! Did you just figure this out? They wouldn’t be in business very long if they were overly generous! Thus, the lesson you should take away from all of this is “The squeaky wheel gets the grease!”

So what if I balked at paying salvage in the beginning of this thread? That has absolutely nothing to do with now, my update post, or posts 39 and 40. As many people very kindly pointed out, I had to buy my car back from the insurance company. But that was then, and this is now. IT IS A MOOT POINT NOW SINCE WE HAVE SETTLED, and I didn't bring that point up again, so why do you continue to do so? I merely posted an UPDATE detailing my experience with the insurance company during the negotiation process, and our eventual settlement. Why can't you keep your comments relevant to my latest posts? And, your statement about always having to pay for salvage is obviously not correct, because ecmst12 has said his company doesn't collect salvage for vehicles over 10 years old, which my truck was.

As far as post 39, I merely pointed out to ecmst12 that his statement about insurance companies not using ads, but using sales figures, was 100% wrong AS IT PERTAINED TO ME. I didn't include the "as it pertained to me" part in my post, because I figured everyone knew that's what I meant. Obviously, you didn't. Ecmst12 seemed to know that when he responded back to me that his company would never use ads.

As far as post 40, and your facetious answer to me about lowballing, no I didn't just figure this out. In fact, I said it first, and moburkes made a comment that the companies were not in the business of lowballing. So, I responded back to Mo with a little poke about lowballing. It doesn't appear as if you've read everything as you say you have, or you would have seen that it was I who first brought it up. So, no I didn't just figure that out.

And, finally, the great manipulation theory. I completely understand your point about manipulation--no it didn't go right over my head. It really isn't very difficult to understand. However, it doesn't apply in my case, and has nothing to do with our accident. I didn't address it last time, because it is irrelevant. But, you seem to want to beat this dead horse, too. So, here goes again:

It was the insurance company who used these ASKING PRICES in ads to determine the fair market value of our truck. They added the 10 ASKING PRICES together for a subtotal, then divided that subtotal by 10, which gave an average figure. (Yes, I know that is called averaging, before you find the need to explain that to me.) THAT IS THE FIGURE THEY USED AS THE FAIR MARKET VALUE OF THE TRUCK. THEY WERE NOT USING IT TO SHOW ME MY VALUE WAS EVEN HIGHER THAN PEOPLE WERE ASKING. THEY USED THE ASKING PRICES IN THE ADS TO DETERMINE THE VALUE.

So, any manipulation by someone planning to sell their old car in a few months, and planting high ads in anticipation of driving up the price for their car, has nothing to do with us or our accident. We didn't plan, or foresee, our accident and plant bogus ads with bogus VIN #'s to drive up our price. I'm sorry you have a problem with AUDATEX, the company that prepared our valuation for the insurance company, and their methods. But, that is what they did. (Maybe you should call AUDATEX and voice your displeasure with them--tell them their methods suck, they're dumb, and that they're setting us all up for manipulation of fmv's in automobile settlements. Perhaps that would make you feel better.)

I'm perfectly capable of reading and seeing how they arrived at their figure, how they used the average asking price in ads to determine fmv, then subtracted other items, including salvage, to arrive at a final net offer. And, I'm perfectly capable of reading how they obtained local dealer comps, plus local ads with asking prices, to determine a new fmv, then subtract a lower salvage figure, to arrive at a new net settlement offer. I didn't read the reports while in some drug-induced stupor. I'm sorry you don't want to believe it. (I wish I could bet you money that this is exactly what they did, and then show you their reports. It would be so nice to have extra money to shop for Xmas.)