re: Salvage Value...

[JustaxPHX@aol.com]

I don't understand what the fuss is about: So long as you're in no way
responsible -- and not being in your car at the time it was hit would seem to
suggest that -- and the damages you suffered are less than the policy limit of
the person who is responsible, then the amount of compensation you ultimately
receive is up to you and/or your representative's negotiation skills in
dealing with their insurance company.

In my experience, most people are happy to have their car totalled instead of
repaired, since they don't keep them longer than five years anyway.  That's
why most insurance claims people seem truly puzzled when you bring up the
possibility that you might want to keep a car that's 15 years old.  To them, a
car is a car is a car and they often believe that paying you book value for a
15-year old car is a gift, considering the way most people maintain their
cars, especially Audis from the early to mid-'80s.

If you don't like their offer, make them a counter-offer.  If you don't like
their counter-counter-offer and the negotiations are going nowhere, contact
your state's insurance administrators and file a complaint; write letter to
the local paper and T.V. stations; flame them on the internet and generally
make yourself a nuisance.  They *will* eventually come around and if they
don't, file suit against them ... so long as you have reasonable evidence to
support your claims, they will eventually settle with you.  BTDT several times
over the years and except for the one instance when I was hit by a working
mother who had no insurance -- which meant I had to deal with *my* insurance
company instead of hers -- I've always managed to get more for my cars than I
could ever have gotten by selling them on the open market.  (The last time, in
early '96, I successfully convinced Allstate to pay me $5,700 for an '87 5k
automatic with fading paint and 140k on it!  Two months later, I helped
someone get $5,500 for an '86 4kq with 120k on it [which happened to be $3k
more than they'd paid for it six months earlier, and four months later, I got
them to pay me $4,200 to repaint my '89 200q because of paint damage caused
when I was caught in a cinder storm even though you can't see it from further
than 2-3 feet...)

The catch, like it often is in today's litigous society, is that you have to
have deep pockets to assert yourself and protect your intersests.  If you
can't afford to buy another car until you after you settle, then you're pretty
much screwed, just as you might be if you can't afford to me (or somebody like
me) to defend you at a tax audit or in court.

But then, nobody said life is fair, right?

JG