Auto Accident

A year or two ago, my sister was involved in a single car accident that resulted in significant injury to herself. (Her vehicle also rolled over and had to be totaled.)

I handled things with the insurance company on her behalf until she got out of the hospital.

The adjuster was pretty fair on the value of the vehicle that was totaled.

Question - is there a loan on the vehicle? (Since you mentioned its only 2 years old.)

In my sister's case, it was a leased vehicle. However, her auto insurance policy had a clause that would pay off what was still owed on the vehicle regardless of the "book value."

For starters, I'd look into 2 things:

1) What (if anything) do they owe on the vehicle?

2) Do some independent research on what the current fair market value of the vehicle might be. (Blue Book, etc.)

The amount they pay from the car should be separate from any type of settlement they offer for the injuries/medical treatment/property damage.

In my experience with my sister, they issued a check fairly promptly for the vehicle replacement. And then there was a separate transaction later on for the other items.

P.S. Of course, different states have different auto insurance laws/regulations. I should probably specifcy that my sister is a Michigan resident.

Is the car financed and does she have gap insurance?

To the best of my knowledge, the Jetta has a loan against it for around $10,000. I don't think they have gap insurance.

madjack, the valuation method the insurance company will use depends on the language of the policy but they typically base their offer on the ACV (actual cash value) of the vehicle, which is basically the replacement cost minus depreciation of the totaled vehicle. They will take into account any improvements your sister made to the vehicle but they will likely require receipts or records evidencing the improvements. The best thing you can do is to do some research on your own to counter the adjuster's offer. Look at websites like Kelly Blue Book and NADA to get some ballpark numbers. The insurance company will still base the offer on their valuation method but those other numbers can be persuasive. Good luck.

women drivers...'nuff said

<rolls eyes>

Because the recent proliferation of male wrong-way freeway drivers is such a great representation of male driving abilities?

Is it just me or the proliferation of people talking on phones while driving isn't getting any better? I rode with someone the other day and just out of mild boredom decided to look and see if there was a breakdown. What I found was it appears most people on the phone are younger, what appears 35 and under of both sexes about the same, and generally people older than that talking and driving are women. Now maybe its was just the area we were in or the day of the week but that's what I observed.

Not to derail the primary purpose of the thread, but what is gap insurance?

Ceck if theres gap insurance included in your car loan asap.

No car loan... paid cash. Ohhhh! Gap between loan remaining and actual value. Thank you, OK :)

rant coming

@Linecrosser

yeah it does seem that way. If cities are gonna pass no texting, they should consider cell phones as a whole. I just lol when i pull up to a green light and the car in front of me is just stopped, no turn signal, just stopped. I honk hoping they will go thru the light only to realize they r turning left. then i go around them and notice them talking on the phone. with the phone in one hand and the other on the steering wheel, i guess it was just an inconvenience to notify to ppl that they have no time to consider traffic laws because "he gotta call his baby momma" or whoever for whatever.

rant over :)

As for the subject of the thread, I dont know exact specifics. I had a family member that had kinda the same thing happen. The car was like $3000 but they only had it 2 months maybe b4 totaling. I have to find out more but in the end the loan was wiped out by the loan company.

I will post the exact info tomorrow.

My thanks to all of you who posted, but especially to ToledoLawyer who gets a hat tip and a hoist of my morning bourbon glass.

Thanks in advance to IamNORMAL.