my car got totaled last year. My insurance found that my car was worth about $16,000. The person at fault was an Los Angeles County driver. My insurance company went to court with LA County to get the value of my car back. LA County and my insurance settled for about $14,000. My insurance said that was about 80% of what they paid (using round numbers, not actually the amounts LOL). My deductible was $1,000, and my insurance paid mea portion of my deductible because they only got a portion of what my car was worth. My insurance got 80% of what they paid so i got $800 (80%) of my deductible. Now, my insurance also sold my car for parts which was for about $13,000, So they got about $30,000 from the settlement and the selling to a junk yard. shouldn’t i get my full deductible because the got even more that the car was worth? and are they supposed to automatically keep the car or are they supposed to ask if i want to keep my car to rebuild it, or sell it for parts myself?
BTW I have my insurance with Farmers.
Thanks in advanced for all of your answers!!
June 4, 2010 @ 7:54 am
OK, I am guessing that when your insurance company went to court, they assessed you to be 20% at fault for this accident, thus reimbursing you 80% of your deductible and they got 80% of the value of your auto. They only owe you your deductible at the percentage they were paid.
As for the money they got from salvage, that has no bearing on you and not entitled to it. I know it sounds unfair, but the insurance company has a right to get back some of the money they paid even though it was more totaled together. Most of the time, they are lucky to get 10% of the value from salvage, since salvage parts especially new or hard to find, will get premium prices. Are you sure they got $13,000?
Now not sure about California, but in some states by law they are barred to let you keep a totaled car and rebuild it. I know in the state of Florida, not allowed and can never get a title or register a totaled car and thus many cars after totaling it, go to Georgia for that reason.
But another consideration. Say for instance you kept the car in lieu of the settlement, then they would subtract out salvage value. At that point, most likely would have offered you say for instance $10,000 vs the $14,000, since they are losing money by not be able to recoup their money plus then you are out of pocket fixing yourself, selling the parts etc and getting the car retitled.
Now the only exception on your deductible would be that say your car was only worth $14,000, then they would owe your full deductible of $1,000, since they cant penalize you the lower value they got, but I strongly suspect that the 80% was done since the other party proved you were 20% at fault, thus they only owe the 80%.
good luck
June 4, 2010 @ 8:51 am
if the insurance company can only get back 80% you only get back 80% as well. i believe your confused… only because if they sold the car for $13,000 and it was only work $16,000 it likely would not have been a total loss. what they do is figure out the value and pay you it minus your deductible. so they paid you $16,000 lets say so your car was $17,000 in value. they then sell the car and lets say $2000 (because i highly doubt they really got $13,000 back) they then are only able to go after the other insurance company or driver for $14,000. so whatever they sued for is the amount they paid you less any proceeds they got from selling the car. so they only got 80% of what their real loss was. which is why you only get 80% as well. There are some states that require you to get your deductible first. yours isn’t one of them.