Hire a diminished value appraiser yourself or get a lawyer. The insurance paid me $5200 in diminished value, which was about $2k less than my appraiser said I should get. This amount was conveniently just above the small claims court maximum in my state. This was for a $11K repair on my M3LR. In hindsight, I probably would have done better with a lawyer.
You need to provide proof that your vehicle is worth less than one without a bad carfax. It is a negotiation. You do not have to settle for what their insurance company says. They are going to try to pay out the least amount possible.
It's officially been one month without my M3. Today I got word that the final part they were waiting on (my fender) has arrived, but they couldn't give me an estimated completion date yet. By the time I do get it back, it'll likely have been in the shop for more time than I actually had the car in my possession
Last update. Repairs on my car were completed on 2/13. Accident was 1/5, so a little over a month without the car. The shop did a great job, everything looks and feels brand new again. The final total on the repair was just over $22,000 (paid by the other guy's insurance). I also filed a diminished value claim with his insurance and they determined that my value lost from the accident was about $5100. They paid me 90% of that ($4600) since they would only accept 90% of the blame. I thought that was crazy to not accept full responsibility, but at the end of the day I had my car back in seemingly perfect condition and $4600 in the bank, so I can't complain too much.
"Accepting 90% responsibility" sounds like "find a way to pay less, I dont care what you do" by the other insurance agency. Kind of like in a home purchase negotiation, one side figures the other wont cancel the deal over an extra 1k (lower, or higher, depending on situation). The agent likely knew OP probably wouldnt "fight" over losing that $500, so they saved some cash by making up some stuff (what it sounds like, anyway). Im not picking on you at all OP, I would have just taken it too, I would have wanted to just put it behind me.
Progressive does this. I was just hit by someone that was ticketed for unsafe lane change when they rammed into me. their fault, 100%, the police ticketed them on scene. Progressive tried to pretend they didn't know I was represented by a lawyer, even though they had all of the documents, and contacted me directly to get a statement. My GF said they did this because they want to introduce even just a small percentage of the blame on me so they can reduce the claim amount. Little did they know that my lawyer was also my GF and sitting beside me when they called. It did not work out in their favor.