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Claim for lost value after an accident

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Almost two months ago my 7 month old 70D was hit in the right rear with substantial damage. Luckily and I think thanks to Tesla's great design I was not damaged in any way.

The other driver ran a red and was ticketed at the scene, his insurance has accepted fault. My car is still in the shop but I should have it back in a couple of weeks.

I wanted to see if anyone has advice on filing a claim on his insurance that the value of my car has been diminished, even after the repair. The accident happened in NY state and my understanding is that state law allows for such a claim. I've not signed any sort of release from either insurance company at this point.

How do I go about making a claim? I'm assuming Tesla will give me a value now, with the damage history, and also be able to tell me what the value would be without the damage history. Do I just send a letter to the insurance co. with these two values?

I'm not terribly interested in getting a lawyer involved, hoping I can make some kind of claim myself.

Ken
 
I don't know if there are any peculiarities for your state, but generally you just make a claim like you would any other insurance claim. If you have been working with an adjuster from the other driver's insurance already, call them up and say you want to make a separate "diminished value" claim on their insured's policy. If you haven't been in contact with anyone at the person's insurance company just call the main phone number and say the same thing. Have the original claim number ready so they can quickly look and see that they have accepted fault. I would probably also write and mail or email a letter with the same information once you have talked to someone, just to have it sent to them in writing.

They will probably come up with their own valuation for the diminished value claim. If you don't like that number you can always fight them on it.
 
I am in the middle of a DV claim in NYS also. NYS is a very difficult state for DV claims. Chances are the other insurance company will start at offering you $0, and fight tooth & nail from there.

However, case law is on your side and if you had to replace a quarter panel, the DV claim should be substantial. You will need an appraisal from a well-qualified DV expert. Make sure you get one that will also fight with the insurance company for you.
 
The same type of thing happened to me and I was able to get a little diminished resale value claim from the insurance company of the other driver.

Hopefully you had the responsible parties insurance pay for the damages, because I don't think you can get it from your own insurance company.

You will need a diminished resale appraisal which you send to the insurance company along with your claim.

The difficult part for me was the amount of diminished resale value on my vehicle according to the appraiser was $16,000. Superior Court case needs to be around $25,000 for any attorney to take the case and small claims in my state is around $7,000

After a six-month-long battle I settled for just short of what I would have got had we gone to small claims court.