Model 3 t-boned. Need DV Expert, Appraiser and Legal Help in Orange County

[ebmcs03]

BTW, it was Geico. They are horrible for paying out.

Oh the other hand, AAA was amazing.

Guess you get what you pay for. Geico was the cheapest I can find to insure my cars. AAA was expensive.

Sigh. I hope I don’t have to deal with these things ever again.

 

[MXWing]

Update: After 2 months of arguing, the other insurance finally accepted fault. Contrary to popular belief, it DID take arguing, because according to them, they are obligated to side with their driver, and consider their drivers statement above any other evidence.

No attorney wanted to take my case. This was the most frustrating part.

Once they accepted fault, I made the argument for a total loss, to which they agreed. My new model 3 had $16k in damages.

Now to negotiate the settlement...

Thank you for sharing and updating us.

Get a dash cam on anything you get. Even TMC members are claiming it would be my fault if an accident occurred on the top post.

Model 3 Dashcam Moments - Video or it didn't happen!

 

[azdryheat]

Just had a similar situation with our 3. Geico driver ran a red light and broadsided us. Luckily injuries are not severe. They accepted liability quickly, but owner does not have enough insurance to pay (car totaled). Have dashcam on my S, but not 3.

 

[ebmcs03]

Just had a similar situation with our 3. Geico driver ran a red light and broadsided us. Luckily injuries are not severe. They accepted liability quickly, but owner does not have enough insurance to pay (car totaled). Have dashcam on my S, but not 3.

Would dash cam even capture a side hit?

So with under insured party does that mean your insurance would pay the difference? Or do you have to buy underinsurance separately?

I never understood that. There’s under insured insurance but if I already have full coverage what would be the use of under insured premium?

 

[azdryheat]

Would dash cam even capture a side hit?

So with under insured party does that mean your insurance would pay the difference? Or do you have to buy underinsurance separately?

I never understood that. There’s under insured insurance but if I already have full coverage what would be the use of under insured premium?

Dashcam with this accident would have captured my green light (even though I had two witnesses). Would have showed my driving carefully, but probably not the impact.

I'm not an attorney or insurance agent...
Your "full coverage" is for YOUR liability in an accident and damage to your car if it is YOUR fault. Comprehensive is for other stuff like vandalism, hail, theft.

The GEICO guy had 25K property damage (AZ minimum). My underinsured is taking over the whole thing and then they will get paid from GEICO. Still off work and trying to get injuries taken care of. Then we will see what kind of liability limits he has. Guessing about 25K per person/50K per accident.

 

[derkan]

Just to update all: The insurance company did reimburse for the full purchase price of the car, due to the used market here and low miles on my car, plus cost of ceramic coating. They also paid Loss of Use equal to one month of renting a Tesla, even though they should have paid 2 or 3 months but I was tired of arguing. They reimbursed the cost of the expert reports and minimal body shop inspection fee. Since LR was no longer available, I had to buy LR Dual Motor and pay the difference.

The damaged car is now at auction. https://www.copart.com/lot/51929128/

 

[ggnykk]

Update: After 2 months of arguing, the other insurance finally accepted fault. Contrary to popular belief, it DID take arguing, because according to them, they are obligated to side with their driver, and consider their drivers statement above any other evidence.

No attorney wanted to take my case. This was the most frustrating part.

Once they accepted fault, I made the argument for a total loss, to which they agreed. My new model 3 had $16k in damages.

Now to negotiate the settlement...

Just curious, which insurance company that the other driver used?
Obligated to side with their faulted driver regardless of any other evidence is simply plain stupid and arrogant.

 

[StellarRat]

Just to update all: The insurance company did reimburse for the full purchase price of the car, due to the used market here and low miles on my car, plus cost of ceramic coating. They also paid Loss of Use equal to one month of renting a Tesla, even though they should have paid 2 or 3 months but I was tired of arguing. They reimbursed the cost of the expert reports and minimal body shop inspection fee. Since LR was no longer available, I had to buy LR Dual Motor and pay the difference.

The damaged car is now at auction. https://www.copart.com/lot/51929128/

Do you feel you came out OK then?

 

[EVDRVN]

Your insurance should handle everything except for DV ..even if ur not at fault ..that’s why when I got hit awhile back I just opened claim with USAA and let them do the dirty work for rental getting car fixed etc ..only thing u need to do is open a claim and provide enough detail for your insurance to start process with other party ..if u go direct to the other party they will slow things down and low ball your work..you can’t start DV until you get a good estimate process like this

1) open claim with insurance
2) choose body shop and get tear down estimate
3) proceed with work
4) there may be additional supplementals that come during repair
5) get final repair bill and submit that to a DV appraiser
6) DV appraiser will prepare letters send off to other party insurance assuming they took liability
7) wait for the fat check to arrive

Yes, what he said is correct and your insurance will hammer theirs. You want to negotiate hard with yours which is easier than 2X with theirs.

 

[dennisvab]

Just to update all: The insurance company did reimburse for the full purchase price of the car, due to the used market here and low miles on my car, plus cost of ceramic coating. They also paid Loss of Use equal to one month of renting a Tesla, even though they should have paid 2 or 3 months but I was tired of arguing. They reimbursed the cost of the expert reports and minimal body shop inspection fee. Since LR was no longer available, I had to buy LR Dual Motor and pay the difference.

The damaged car is now at auction. https://www.copart.com/lot/51929128/

I can’t believe that’s a totalled car. What was the repair estimate? You see way worse and not totalled

 

[derkan]

Just curious, which insurance company that the other driver used?
Obligated to side with their faulted driver regardless of any other evidence is simply plain stupid and arrogant.

California Casualty Co.

Do you feel you came out OK then?

I guess so. To be honest, everything barely paid to replace the car, which was essentially new. Hours and hours of hassle and worry and 3 months without my car were not worth it. If I got anything less I would have been deeply upset.

Yes, what he said is correct and your insurance will hammer theirs. You want to negotiate hard with yours which is easier than 2X with theirs.

I was unable to get my insurance to do anything. I should probably have hammered them much harder.

I can’t believe that’s a totalled car. What was the repair estimate? You see way worse and not totalled

Please see the other link 2016 Model S 90D - Property Damage Claim Post Mortem where others describe the math eloquently.
Repair estimate was $15k by the shop, $8k by the opposing insurance. But the real math is not whether it's worth repairing with respect to remaining street value, the real math is - will it cost the insurance company less to settle with me. What they did was pay me for new car + 1 month Loss of Use, and then they are selling my old car at auction probably recovering $25k to $35k right there. Their alternative was to pay for repairs + any additional repair and storage costs yet unknown + 3 to 4 months Loss of Use + Diminished Value of $21k, + potentially some other stuff I could have claimed, which was adding up to be worse for them. In other words - as long as they were able to settle within their insured's limits, for a set one-time amount, to make this claim go away, and in the process pay out less, why wouldn't they. A lot of us (myself included) think totalled means the car is not driveable or repairing it would "not be worth it". Honestly if I could, I would purchase my old car back from the auction, get it repaired and drive it as a backup car for 10 years, even tough it's technically a salvaged title now

 

[Gavyne]

Interesting, so it comes down to the path to the least costly and quickest resolution, rather than how badly the car was damaged. I would imagine they could fetch good price for that car since lots of the parts are untouched, especially the battery pack.

 

[derkan]

Interesting, so it comes down to the path to the least costly and quickest resolution, rather than how badly the car was damaged. I would imagine they could fetch good price for that car since lots of the parts are untouched, especially the battery pack.

I think so, especially if you can convince the insurance company to follow this meaningful path. How badly the car is damaged of course impacts this indirectly due to repair cost and duration for LOU. The car is at auction currently bidding at $25k. https://www.copart.com/lot/51929128/

 

[derkan]

Actually, $31k now..

 

[derkan]

Sold for $37,250.

 

[ElectricGhost]

Sold for $37,250.

thats crazy high, My P3D was the middle in a 3 car pile up sustaining $7100 in damages. It was 3 months old with 4800 miles. At 5500 miles Carmax offered me $47,000. It retailed for 76,000 5 months ago. This was after it was repaired and without being totaled. They said that was due to low auction values. Still fighting for diminished value.

 

[SoCalGuy]

Sold for $37,250.

Maybe I missed this, but who did you use for DV in OC/LA?

My buddy got into a fender bender with $19K in damages to his Model 3 which only had 2K miles. Repairs are likely to take another 6-8 weeks on top of the 5 weeks he’s been waiting for parts. I’ve told him that he should ask for DV value given resale impact from accident on the carfax report. He hasn’t had much experience with DV or LOU (neither have I thankfully). Any advice is appreciated (he’s in LA).

 

[ElectricGhost]

Maybe I missed this, but who did you use for DV in OC/LA?

My buddy got into a fender bender with $19K in damages to his Model 3 which only had 2K miles. Repairs are likely to take another 6-8 weeks on top of the 5 weeks he’s been waiting for parts. I’ve told him that he should ask for DV value given resale impact from accident on the carfax report. He hasn’t had much experience with DV or LOU (neither have I thankfully). Any advice is appreciated (he’s in LA).

He should argue to have it totaled. LOU is easily $200/day, I’ve been offer that for my repairs. DV should be at least 20%. Add in repairs and it could insurance cost more than he owes assuming he is not at fault.

 

[derkan]

Maybe I missed this, but who did you use for DV in OC/LA?

My buddy got into a fender bender with $19K in damages to his Model 3 which only had 2K miles. Repairs are likely to take another 6-8 weeks on top of the 5 weeks he’s been waiting for parts. I’ve told him that he should ask for DV value given resale impact from accident on the carfax report. He hasn’t had much experience with DV or LOU (neither have I thankfully). Any advice is appreciated (he’s in LA).

stlucieappraisal.net
for both DV and LOU. Sorry it sounds like an advertisement, but the reports are worth the weight in gold. The insurance eventually reimbursed me for the cost of the report too.
Insurance paid $180 per day LOU, because that was the daily rental cost (before taxes) on a monthly basis (e.g. with long term rental discount)
DV in my case came out to be 42% of pre-loss fair market value, which the report will include numbers for. If you go on autotrader and search for used model 3s in your area with low miles, you should get an idea. People don't want to buy a repaired M3 if they can avoid the risk.

You can totally argue for it to be declared a total loss.
After that, you can still ask for some LOU.

 

[SoCalGuy]

stlucieappraisal.net
for both DV and LOU. Sorry it sounds like an advertisement, but the reports are worth the weight in gold. The insurance eventually reimbursed me for the cost of the report too.
Insurance paid $180 per day LOU, because that was the daily rental cost (before taxes) on a monthly basis (e.g. with long term rental discount)
DV in my case came out to be 42% of pre-loss fair market value, which the report will include numbers for. If you go on autotrader and search for used model 3s in your area with low miles, you should get an idea. People don't want to buy a repaired M3 if they can avoid the risk.

You can totally argue for it to be declared a total loss.
After that, you can still ask for some LOU.

Thanks - does DV claim work with those cheap insurance companies as well (eg Geico, Alliance United, etc)? My friend has AAA or State Farm but the guy that hit his Model 3 has one of those cheap insurance companies...