Someone rear ended our 2013 Ford fusion. The damage was minimal but their insurance sent us a check for almost $700. I'm 90% positive I can fix this myself for free. Do I send the check back to them? It's written out to me. I could use the money to buy tires for the car
Above all, I don't want to commit insurance fraud.
Picture of the damage.
Keep the money and do what ever you want with it.
Consider it a settlement for the decreased car value (now that it's been in an accident).
They paid you so you "can" fix it, nothing says you have to fix it. Use it to buy a can of touch up paint keep the change and the repair is complete.
Wish the cops would hurry up and find the guy/gal that punted my car onto the sidewalk although they'd probably write my beater off at $700. A new rear bumper cover would be nice if even available. 
iceracer wrote: Keep the money and do what ever you want with it.
Correct. Your car, your money. Insurance company doesn't care what you do with it. It's not fraud at all to pocket the money.
In reply to Klayfish:
If you took the money for a repair and chose not to fix it, and get hit again do they deduct the previous payment or is that another wive's tale?
In reply to Wall-e:
Wive's tale.
But, the adjuster would be looking to establish the difference between new damage and pre-existing.
If the old dent has rust forming, etc., or if the scrapes are from a white car but a red car hit you, your claim could be rejected.
AND the adjuster has pictures and reports of the first accident. Pretty unlikely you would get paid twice for the same accident (but you would get paid for each separate accident)
Wall-e wrote: In reply to Klayfish: If you took the money for a repair and chose not to fix it, and get hit again do they deduct the previous payment or is that another wive's tale?
Well, if the adjuster recognizes it as old damage, they would write it that way. So in this case, if the OP got rear ended again and the adjuster could tell it was old damage, they'd write for anything new, but not the bumper skirt because it had no value. Truth is that it's often pretty hard to tell. Let's say it's a bit harder next time, it may be near impossible to tell that it was damaged already.
That happens a lot...at least that's my guess because no way to know for sure. Probably happens most on total losses. My insured hits a car hard and totals it, imagine it was heavy front end damage. I probably wouldn't know if the car had minor or even moderate front end damage before the accident.
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