Auto Insurance Claims

It’s a sad moment when your shiny new sports car gets rear ended while you are stopped at the corner red light. You exchange necessary auto insurance claim information with the other driver and feel confident that his agency will make everything right again. His insurance company readily agrees to pay for all the necessary repairs to your new sports car at the very best auto body repair shop in the area using original factory parts. They even have the decency to provide you with a nice luxury rental vehicle until your repairs have been completed. Now, what more could you possibly ask for?

In all reality you should be extremely happy about the outcome of your auto insurance claim except for one slight small problem. Should you be planning to trade your vehicle in after several years you have just run into a grave situation. Regardless of how good of a job was accomplished on your car, its value has dropped drastically since you were in the accident.

Your car now boasts an auto insurance claim accident record from being in a wreck and this documentation will continue to follow your car wherever it may go. So what you say? The point is that with these car history companies popping up everywhere, a potential purchaser can easily check car histories. Once this is done, those potential buyers will not want to pay the same amount as before since they now know the car had an auto insurance claim processed against it and has been in an accident.

The difference in the amount between the values of your car had it not been involved in an accident and the value after it had is known as “diminished value.” The diminished value difference can often be up to an 18 percent variation in value.

Cases indicate that the state insurance departments as well as individual auto insurance claim companies state that they are not obligated in any way to compensate for this diminished value. A few states, such as Georgia, maintain the auto insurance claim should assume some responsibility towards the diminished value Therefore, according to what your home state is determines exactly how successful you would be in claims relating to diminished value.

The largest auto history business group is the widely advertised CarFax. Here anyone can insert a VIN number and receive the complete history of a vehicle which they may be seriously considering purchasing. Granted in some auto insurance claim cases accident damage possibly could affect the safety or the reliability of a vehicle after the proper repairs had been accomplished.

CarFax believes that no mater how well repairs have been completed on a car the potential buyer should be aware that the vehicle had been involved in a critical accident. What this amounts to you is should you have considered your vintage Firebird to be valued at $10,000 in reality it may only be worth a mere $6,000 after it was hit by the falling tree branch, even if it was repaired to look as good as new.

The mistaken idea that most people have concerning auto insurance claims and repairs according to insurance policies is that this should clearly become the responsibility of the insurance company themselves. However the problem is centered upon the policy. Insurance policies states that you are guaranteed that your vehicle will be properly repaired to its pre-accident condition. Nowhere in your policy will you find anything relating to compensate of the perceived loss for its value.

The whole legal battle is still widely up in the air as courts within the states of Maine, Delaware, South Carolina and Texas have defended the insurance companies stand while a few states such as Kansas and Georgia have taken the liberty to support the notion of diminished value and ruled in favor of the policyholder.

As an owner of a previously auto insurance claim damaged vehicle, there are several options available to you when you are trying to sell your car. You are left with deciding to try hiding the fact that your vehicle was damaged in an auto insurance claim accident and hoping the buyer does not discover this fact or you can merely bite the bullet and acknowledge the fact that you must accept a lower price.

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