Well, I learned something today. People who know me will tell you that it’s hard to admit that there is something that I don’t know, but they will also tell you that I believe you can learn lessons even from people or experiences you don’t like. So, I’m sharing my lesson of the day with you, even though I’m not that happy to admit I hadn’t known about it before…
Car accidents and lawyers go hand in hand. This must be true or they wouldn’t be advertising on TV all the time that you must call them when you have a car accident, have injuries, and the accident was NOT YOUR FAULT! These are personal injury attorneys. They are particularly interested in your medical (or emotional) injuries resulting from the accident, and not all that concerned with the damage to your car. The damage to your car is called property damage. The personal injury attorney may tell you that they will “assist” you with obtaining the property damage settlement for your car, but they usually don’t make any money on that claim, so are not all that interested in it. The usual procedure is that you get an estimate of the damage to your car either from a body shop or the insurance company and they agree to pay you (or the body shop) the exact amount of the repairs. If your car is totaled, you have a whole different problem on your hands, especially if you have a loan on the car that won’t be paid off by the amount the insurance company wants to pay (but that is another discussion — not part of today’s lesson learned).
There are two things to be aware of when dealing with the car repair. First, if the insurance company sends someone to do an estimate of the repairs on your car (usually the insurance company for the person at fault, not your insurance company), they will give you the written estimate on the spot and ask you if you want to get the car repaired or just want the money. You may be tempted to take the money and not get the car fixed. However, the estimate done by the guilty party’s adjuster may be too low. This can happen for a couple of reasons. First, they may not be able to see all the actual damage to the car because they don’t have it up on a rack. Just as likely (or more likely, if you’ve gotten a taste for my point of view) is that they are hoping you will just want the money and settle for the amount which turns out not to be enough. I had this happen recently — the adjuster gave me an estimate for repair on a rear-end collision. When I actually took the car to MY body shop, they found additional damage. The body shop contacted the insurance company and got the additional money for the repair.
The second thing to beware of is my life lesson of the day. Some day after you have the car accident and have your car repaired, you will want to trade in or sell your car. It may actually be that there was very little damage to your car in the accident — at least not major damage to the frame. However, because your accident was reported to the police, the accident is reported to CarFax. CarFax is that great Internet resource where you can get history about any car you may be looking to purchase and a great way (theoretically) to make sure you are not buying a car that has suffered major body damage. HOWEVER, I learned today that if your car is reported to CarFax as having been in an accident, it will suffer from a loss in future value, even if there was no major damage to your car. The simple fact that your car was involved in an accident, no matter how minor, will lower the future value of your car.
I am not exactly sure how your lawyer is going to deal with this problem, but there is more to your property damage claim than the actual repairs. It may be possible to get an affidavit from a reputable car dealer about how the Kelley Blue Book value of your car will be affected by the Negative CarFax info on your car. In my humble opinion, you should get some additional property damage settlement in addition to the repairs. Since this isn’t typically the kind of thing that personal injury attorneys like to take up their time doing, you may have a challenge on your hands. However, remember, once you agree to settle the property damage claim on your vehicle, there is no going back. It’s a done deal. Your personal injury claim is a completely different case and is settled separately.
Just in case you are wondering how I learned this lesson today – took a nice little convertible sports car in to the dealer to sell. It’s in perfect condition, low mileage, a beauty. They wouldn’t buy it from me because it had a negative CarFax report (the car was literally bumped in an accident 2 years ago, but since the vehicle was on the police report, it made it to CarFax). There were no actual repairs needed to the car — our body shop buffed out the mark on the bumper at no charge. But now, 2 years later, the car is difficult to sell and worth about $6,000 less than it would be, minus the CarFax “ding.” Expensive lesson.
