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Old 03-14-2020, 01:06 PM   #1365
ZBB
Relic
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Carmudgeonly Ride: A very fast golf cart
Location: The Valley of the Sun
Posts: 12,821
Quote:
Originally Posted by ff View Post
How did this turn out? Did you get a fair settlement from the other insurance?
I finally closed out all the insurance claims. Long saga, but to summarize:

Damage:
- Initial Est was $12.3k
- Final bill was $19.1k
- No issues getting this paid (the initial was paid to me, the rest directly to the shop).

Rental car/gas total: $3.1k
- My insurance picked up the first 30 days for ~$960
- I then incurred nearly $1.9k out of pocket for rental cars for the next ~4.5 months. They initially rejected most of this and paid me $64 in Dec '18 and $345 in June '19. It took until November before they paid the rest after several months where I sent emails to multiple people with no response; I finally sent a certified letter stating that the next step was to contact the Ohio insurance commissioner and a phone call that got me to someone that tried to push off, but then said they would look at it and get back to me the next day. They did follow up the next day saying they needed a few more days; then I finally got confirmation that they would pay the full request in mid Nov and the check was in our mail when we returned from Disney at Thanksgiving.
- I also spent $307 on gas for rental cars, which I claimed as incremental cost to me since I drive an EV. Every single request was met with push back stating they don't pay for fuel. My certified letter included it and an explanation of why it was incremental cost to me. The final claim check covered this.

Diminished Value: $5k
- I paid ~$50 for an appraisal that came in at $7k
- I did an appraisal of the car on Carvana and they listed the diminished value at $4.5k
- Insurance offered $5k and would not budge. I tried several times to get them to average their offer and the 3rd party appraisal. Finally just gave up (and the Caravana value helped a little bit...)
- They also reimbursed the $50 appraisal in the end (but they said no to that every single time I asked verbally -- took putting it in writing to get it paid).
- Finally received the DV claim check in Jan 2020.

Total value of all claims: $27.2k
Accident to final settlement: 1 year 4 months

The car:
- Repairs were complete in late Feb 2019. Car was in the shop for 1 week shy of 5 months.
- I've had some issues since... Its been in to Tesla and back to the body shop a couple times for a leaking trunk. Out of service ~2 weeks due to this. I still get an occasional small leak of a few drips (but have found that I can pull the trunk weather strip up and it will be OK except under very high pressure).
- The paint job on the lower rocker panel below the driver's door failed -- the red paint started flaking off and you could see the white primer underneath. This is actually a common failure point on Model 3s, so I think this may not be due to the accident, but the area was re-sprayed during the repair, so Tesla wouldn't cover it under warranty. The body shop did cover it under their warranty. The car went back in for about 2.5 weeks last December (and I waited a month to take it in...).

Overall, it been repaired well and drives fine. I just passed 12k miles on the car this week.

Plan is to keep it maybe another year and then replace it while its still under warranty. I'll take a bit of a depreciation hit, but at this point I really don't care.

Once we finish our move, I'll speculate about what to get next. Since my wife has a Model Y on order, I'm thinking I might go for the Mustang Mach E, or maybe see what a used Jaguar I-Pace goes for...
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