Insurance saying my car is only worth 1200 bucks

[HachiCoupe]

Hey Guys,

Since there was a small accident on my rear end, my insurance is salvaging my car. It's a 1986 Corolla GTS 3 door liftback with LSD. few mods here and there but nothing major. Stock 4age. paint didn't match because i swapped out my levin front end for stock.

They said it's only worth $1150 and allowing me to keep the car. I'm fighting with them to value the car higher because they send me a report of the cars that they were able to find to compare value to my car. The report included a 4 door 1987 corolla and an 1987 LE 5 door corolla. I'm telling them that those are not even close to my vehicle and they can not be used to compare.

Now they're telling me the only way I can take is to get an independent appraiser to determine the value of the car, then they will send a appraiser as well. Those 2 will come to a final price whether it be more or less.

Have any deal with this before? or should i just take my $1150 check?

any information will be helpful.

Thanks!

[Deuce Cam]

Who did the police and insurance companies determine was at fault? My old GTS was totaled out in April 2012 and one of the other drivers was at fault. (It took a few weeks for the all the insurance companies that were involved to get on the same page and agree who was at fault.)

While they were figuring everything out my insurance company (Progressive) gave me a preliminary value on the car in case they had to reimburse me. They offered $620 and $30 to buy it back - they wouldn't budge on this. They said I had to give examples of cars with the same make/year/model fs in my area to plead a case for higher reimbursement. All I could do was provide club4ag, hr.net, and national cg listings since there were no ae86's for sale in AZ at the time. They came back and said the examples had to be from my area and I had to provide a VIN number along with the listings . All I could say was, "there are no examples for me to provide. You figure it out. What the hell am I paying you for!?" Nadaguides.com value didn't mean **** to them. Progressive sucks!

Anyway, thankfully the at-fault party's insurance company (State Farm) had to reimburse me. They initially offered me $1900. I explained to the claim guy that their offer wasn't reasonable based on market value. At that point they had to contact a third party company to get appraisal which ended up paying off big time for me. The value was determined to be $4500, and this was for a completely stock 1986 GTS. They couldn't reimburse me for aftermarket parts because I didn't have any receipts. I was also able to buy the car back for $250. I gutted the car, made a bunch of cash from selling parts, and a lot of the stuff is on my new car. The car still lives also (sort of). A local corolla friend is making good progress on getting up to drift missile status.

[HachiCoupe]

It was a hit and run because my car was hit in the parking lot and i have no evidence of who hit me. Very minor damage but they decided to salvage the car. It's been determined that it's 100% not my fault. My car has full coverage so my insurance will be paying me. My insurance is Wawanesa.

Has any one dealt with an appraiser and how much do they cost?

Thanks,
Bao

[miswuevos]

AMA START SAVING MY RECEIPTS

[HachiCoupe]

I'm not looking to get compensated for the mods. Just the value of the car itself. We all know it's not worth $1200 running.

[Deuce Cam]

You may try asking your claims person if the insurance company is willing to go through a third party agency to determine value for a second opinion. My insurance company wasn't willing to do that. They said it was up to me to provide all the info, and even then there was no guarantee. In all honesty it might have played out differently if my insurance company ended up having to reimburse me (they knew the other guy was at fault i.e. his provider would likely be responsible for 100% of the loss).

Luckily State Farm offered it up when I said I wasn't happy with the value they determined. I didn't even ask for a second opinion from a third party, they offered it up. I'm assuming it's part of their policy.

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind is that one usually gets compensated better if the accident was someone else's fault AND their insurance company is responsible for the loss and damages. If it's a hit and run it will boil down to how good your insurance company/coverage is because they will be compensating you.

[HachiCoupe]

Then told me that I would have to pay for the independent appraiser. I'm fighting them about that too. It's not my fault they dont have the proper procedure put in place to determine an old car's market value.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

These cars have taken on their own cult status and their own value separate from blue book value.
The best thing you can do is find as many examples of other cars in similar condition as possible with higher values. Find Craigslist ads, ebay, autotrader etc. Prove to them what the real world value of your car is. The more you can find in your area with a high value the better for your case however if you can't find many in your area and can try to prove it that gives increased value as well due to the difficulty in trying to replace it.

[slamae86]

You should be happy for getting anything over $1000. Regardless what you think your car is worth or how 'rare' they are.. It's still a 25+ year old car with a ton of miles.

[truenoboy]

This exact same thing happened to me many years ago, when my friend rear ended me and totaled my car. His insurance company also compared my GTS to a 4 door DX, saying that's all they could find that year to compare it to. What I did was reject their offer (which you can do), and rasied the argement that they were comparing apples to oranges, and then did my own research and provided them 3 GTS's for sale or have sold in my geographical area, which they then honored and raised the payment based on the average of those 3 cars. You have the same option...you have the right to not accept an insurance company's offer and work with them to make you a better offer.

Not sure in your state, but in FL, most if not all insurance companies also have to pay for car rental each day the claim is open, so it's in their best intereset to come to agreement and close out the claim ASAP. If insurance in your state is the same as in FL, you can even have them add the sum of daily car rentals on top of the claim amount in the event they did not rent you a car, which is what I did.