Finally! Just heard from the Farmers agent from up in the Redding area. She'd just gotten back from the body shop and has authorized repairs totalling a tad over $7200, supplements to follow. Anybody think of anything else I should be asking for beyond direct expenses and compensation for loss of use? I think it's probably a little late to bring a chiropractor into the picture. ;(
More history, to which there is a bit of a point if you'll bear with me. Accident, for which the other driver was clearly responsible, happened Feb 16. Took 'em quite a spell to come up with any sort of admission of liability, which came in the form of an offer to settle and total the car accompanied by a check for $3800 & change. While I was psyching myself up for going toe to toe with them in a legal arena someone suggested I get the wagon appraised. So, not alltogether optimistically, I did a little surfing for auto appraisers and came up with a website for the Auto Appraisal Group, nationwide outfit, that for the nominal sum of $25 does a thing called a Value Range Report/survey/whatever. So thinking only that this might give me a clue as to whether it might be worth my while to spend significantly more for a full blown appraisal, I filled out the online form and authorized the $25 and a couple of hours later I had by email evidence that my wagon should appraise somewhere between $9500 & $13500. Couldn't foresee any problem with passing this little gem on to Farmers, whose agent had previously suggested I buy my own appraisal, so I did. Right away, I got a call from them and suddenly they wanted to buy an appraisal. Few days later the appraiser came out and I supplied her with the comps I'd been collecting and the Value Range thingy from AAG and let her do her thing. Next morning came another call from Farmers informing me they'd decided to fix the wagon after all when the appraisal came in at $11500. Today's call pretty much set that in stone so far as I can tell. The appraised value was arrived at by averaging the listed prices for which 3 'comparable' vehicles were being offered. The nice appraiser used two of the comps I'd supplied her, after verifying them I later learned, and another kind of lowball example, no doubt a rustbelt beater. Could have been a bit higher but was more than sufficient to the purpose. Warmed the cockles of my wee heart that Farmers got to pay $372 for the appraisal only to find they were going to have to put out what will no doubt turn out to be more than double their original settlement offer. So the moral to this story is to keep in mind the potential power of an independent appraisal should any of you find yourself in a similar situation and are sure that your local market will support a much higher assigned value to your ride than what resulted from an insurance company's internally generated valuation. I suppose that even if you have to spring for the appraisal youself and it turns out to support your position you should be able to include that in the costs for which you are due restitution. Reminds me, I need to include that $25 in my expenses resulting from this fiasco. :) joe
