| Author |
Message |
    
Peter Carey (Pcarey)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 06:38 pm: | 
|
Howdy,
I just got off the phone to add a 97 Disco with a good number of modifications to to, to my insurance. And I was wondering if what I was quoted was in-line with other people have seen when they went to include "after market" modifications to insurance.
Just a bit of background; this is the company I have my homeowners ins. through as well as the multi-car, discount for having two other vehicles currently insured. I'm also married and 30 years old and to any insurance, seem like a really stable guy to be insuring (no tickets, no accidents, haven't burned down a house, etc...). Only drive 5 miles a day for commute to the bus stop. Although in this case, I told them the Disco was only for rec use for now until I drop the Jeep. $500 deductable and standard on most else.
They quoted me at $618 for a year for the stock vehicle, but then it went up to $1128/year when I added in about $5500 worth of replacement cost of modifications (not including labor, just new replacement parts).
I obviously want to include the mods. as it would suck to lose any of it if I got in a real bad accident. Lose it as in having to come up with the money to replace it. And it would take 11 years of saving that $500/year difference to justify not having the insurance.
But Hmmm....now that I type this it might make sense to NOT include all the mods in the quote since the odds of 'everything' being demolished beyond use is not likely. Besides, if I got in an accident bad enough to destroy the rack, winch, bumper, locker, axel, sliders, etc... I might not even be able to drive. Hmmmm...
thoughts?
pwc |
Rob Davison (Pokerob)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 06:52 pm: |
|
NFG. i got a quote from gieco with all the shit included and it was only like $200 more per year.
try calling around an get some quotes. |
Jerry Crawford, 98 D-I
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 07:46 pm: |
|
your original thinking is dead on. It's unlikly you will destroy all those expensive accessories in a werck. So, in theory, you could recover them and market them or possible put them on the next vehicle. HOWEVER - trying to get those neat items off the vehicle after the Insurance company gets their hands on it might be next to impossible.
In my last wreck I turned a Toyota 4Runner into twisted scrap all around me. They had to cut the drivers side of the vehicle completly off to extract me. By the time I got out of the emergency room about 8 hours later the insurance company was setting the pile of junk up for an auction and I had to get three levels of permission to gain acces to it in the yard to recover my wallet and glasses that were in the glove box. And, a yard guy watched so I didn't try to take any thing else.
So, IMHO, your theory of not wrecking everything is valid - but recovering it from the wreck is dubious. |
Carter Simcoe (Carter)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 07:53 pm: |
|
I got my add-ons insured as well and it costs hardly nothing extra for another $3,000 worth of coverage (literly only a few more bucks a month). My father is the agent so I am not 100 percent sure that doesn't have anything to do with it though. |
niall forbes (Forbesn)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 08:00 pm: |
|
I would think that if extra add ons aren't covered by insurance, they'd have to give them to you because they are only insuring the rest of the stuff and therefore only own the rest of the stuff if they write it off. |
Jerry Crawford, 98 D-I
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 08:57 am: |
|
...I may be unwarranted but it just seems to me possession is 9/10th of the law. Once the yard and insurance company get their hands on the truck how are you going to access it to remove mechanical stuff even if you do own it? The yard is charging the Company high storage fee's to store the wreck on their property and the Company is trying to move it quickly to avoid paying a couple of hundred bucks a day storage fee.
Maybe....MAYBE, the yard has posession for a week before the Company sells the carcus at an auction. On top of that the yard probably won't let you access to the wreck because they won't want to accept any laiability for your being there + they don't know if your trying to steal parts that the Company owns.
It's a whole can of worms and a new rule at every turn. Unless you can have the wreck towed to your house (whick seems unlikly because the tow truck want's those storage fees) you might as well just write off anything attached to the vehicle when it becomes a wreck. |
Jerry Crawford, 98 D-I
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 09:45 am: |
|
.....and following up on Peter's original posting tag, if the wreck was as bad as our suposition here he's not in any condition to be turning wrenches to strip stuff off a wreck for at least a month; unless he has good friends who will do that for him - which just cranks in another level of complications at the junk yard.
I just don't see any easy or realistic way out. You either pay for the insurance after looking around for the best deal or you use Air Force & US Navy accounting practices. When they purchase a new air plane it's written off as a total loss right away because they know its a gonner one way or the other the first hard landing it has.
Can anyone dispute my logic? I'd love to be wrong here. |
Peter Carey (Pcarey)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 11:04 am: |
|
Perhaps I'm missing something since I've never totaled a car. And forgive my ignorance, but how does the insurance company take possesion of the vehicle and is able to dispose it if I, or my bank, hold the title?
Seems there's something illegal about taking something away from someone who owns it, especially if you don't accept a check from the insurance company.
pwc |
Rob Davison (Pokerob)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 12:22 pm: |
|
it the tyranny of the white man, fight the power.
rd |
Leslie N. Bright (Leslie)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 01:10 pm: |
|
Peter,
Going through this now. They send you a letter, a Power of Attorney, that you have to have notarized that gives them permission to dispose of it for you.
FWIW...
-L |
Jerry Crawford, 98 D-I
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 01:18 pm: |
|
...hmmm, well Peter, I don't have an answer to your question. And, it is a very good one. Perhaps someone else who has had an experience similar to my total loss can chime in and add to the discussion. I suspect the company and bank work in collusion so the insurance loss is minimized beyond the difference between loan payoff and the fair market value they pay to you.
In my own case I notified the agent the following day of the accident, within a day or two the insurance company had an adjuster at the yard and a couple of days after that I went over to take a friend to look at my 4Runner and it was gone to the chopper. The following week I was writing a deposit for my Disco. I actually didn't take posession of it for about three weeks till I could walk (I was a couple of weeks recovering - but the transactions for the loss were about that fast).
I'm not an insurance guy or banker so I can't speak to those parts. |
Paul T. Schram (Paulschram)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 04:58 pm: |
|
My wife is an insurance adjuster...
I am completely surprised that Jerry was never offered an opportunity to buy the vehicle back from the insurance company for salvage value.
Usually, there is a means to negotiate what happens to the car. It all depends upon the adjuster how you'll be treated. Piss off the adjuster and forget about it. Be nice to him/her and you'll get a much bigger settlement.
When a vehicle is crashed, the adjuster has to decide what the vehicle was worth before the crash. RARELY will any of the aftermarket components you have added to the vehicle be taken into consideration at all, even if you had them bound to the policy as it is difficult for the adjuster to place a value upon those modifications (Can you tell how many times I've listened to one side of this conversation at the living room couch when somebody calls to complain?). Once the adjuster determines how much the vehicle was worth, they next get to determine the cost of repair. Depending upon the insurance company, and sometimes, the state in which you live, the totaled status is dependent upon repairs costing less than a fixed percentage of the vehicle's value.
Vehicles are valued by a company (national auto dealers association) that examines current auction and retail sales that have taken place in the last quarter in your region of the country. Obviously, there is no consideration of added options beyond factory at that point.
Now that you have the value of the vehicle before the crash (and presumably after the damage has been repaired), and the cost of repairs, if the cost doesn't exceed the pre-set percentage,the vehicle gets fixed. If the repair cost exceeds the cost to repair*percentage, it gets totaled. But, the game doesn't end here. At this point, the insurance company is going to send it to the big auction in the sky (OK, maybe in the region). Since the insurance company doesn't care what they get for it, the clearing house will usually pay them 10-15% of the calculated value of the car, hence, you can buy it from the insurance company for the same amount.
The upshot of the whole deal-if you want your stuff, buy the vehicle, remove your goodies, post the rest on eBay and hope your neighbors don't complain about the partially disassembled car in the driveway.
Peace,
Paul |
Blue (Bluegill)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 06:44 pm: |
|
there is one quick way to lose all those precious mods all at once - it's called theft. Insure that bad boy but shop around. $618 stock going up to $1128/year modded is muy loco. |
Jerry Crawford, 98 D-I
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 07:17 pm: |
|
Hey Paul,
Thanks for the words of clarity on this string. Not many of us have the opportunity to get a birds eye view of the process that you have being married to an adjuster.
Jerry |
Peter Carey (Pcarey)
| | Posted on Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 08:39 pm: |
|
Thanks all. I think I will be shopping around some more. My insurance company has been pretty good, but obviously not in this case. My other thought was to just take the extra $500/year and sock it away, playing the odds and gaining some interest in the mean time. If nothing else, at least I'd have the deductable handy.
Paul, when you mention NADA, do they figure it on the retail or the trade in? I'd assume trade in. Which is fine because NADA seems to be higher than what I could get a replacement for if I bought from the East Coast again. Sorry Rob, not planning the demise of the Disco anytime soon, just thinking ahead.
Maybe because I told her it was lifted 2", that could have done it.
pwc |
|
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page