About a year ago, I bought a '02 Toyota Avalon from salvage auction, as detailed in this thread.
This past Friday, one of my driver's got rear-ended while driving the Avalon. A Fire Truck was traveling on the East side of a 2 lane road and my driver was headed West. The car in front of my driver stopped as the Fire truck went by. My driver slowed for that car but the car behind him did not slow. Net result, a light hit from behind.
This '02 Avalon with an R-Title now has a scratched plastic rear bumper and what looks like no other damage from this bump. In general the rear bumper now matches the appearance of the rest of the 190k mile, rust belt, Avalon. To put the car on the road after the salvage purchase resulted in me having $1500 in the whole car. Currently with new tires, shocks and brakes I have less than $2,500 into the whole car.
Why am I happy? I hope this bump will generate a $500 to $1k check to me from the other guys insurance company. I'll pocket the cash and continue on with a scratched bumper.
Pics of new damage:
Nice!!! Some bonehead rear-ended the integra right before my wife and I got married. Insurance company requested 3 estimates, so I went to all high-end shops.
They cut a check for $1800 for a scratch on the bumper/tiny dent on the hatch of my $3,000 car. Wife and I used it toward our honeymoon!
It's a Camry. As long as the occupants walk away unscathed, it won't be missed. Extra money is gravy.
My 2nd to last jag was kind of like that. Pulled it out of a joint yard. (It was a donated car) fixed it and drove it for a year or two. Got totaled by some one plowing in to me from behind. but I ended up about $2,500 ahead. The sad part is I really miss that one car. Usually I choose when to get rid of a car this one always has felt like it was taken from me.
That happened with the temporary 92 olds 88 I bought. I paid $900 and put $0 into it, carli got hit from behind and cracked the cover/broke a reflector and crushed the rusty crash bar. A few hours later i had a check from progressive for $856ish and was on my way in my $44 car. She drove it a whole winter and then because it owed me nothing I gave it to her dad and he put several thousand miles on it before it wouldnt start one day so he donated it
I had a $3500 Buick Roadmaster rear ended (well, backed into) by a snow plow truck. I got $2000 from the insurance company and then spent $150 of my own money fixing it. That sure made me smile!
In my first post I stated that I hoped for a $500-$1,000 check.
Today, a check for $780.13 arrived! Winning!
The at-fault insurance company said I could either drive to any shop and get an estimate or I could send pics via text to them and they would write off of those. I did not want to waste the time of a shop for work I would never send them so I went with the text pics. No real communication from them after that, instead, today, two envelopes arrived. One with a written estimate, one with a check enclosed. I could likely hit them with more but I think this pay-off is commensurate with the effort I have had to exert (send text pics...check arrives).
Would you share the name of the at-fault insurance company? After having some bad experiences I might be swayed to switch to one that takes care of people like this.
Sure, the at-fault company was AAA.
Actually, another car of mine was hit last year by Farmers. In a few days, a guy came directly to my house to write estimate and I had a check in my hand in exactly 7 days after the accident happened. They did a much better job then AAA.
Farmers came right to me. With AAA I had to do the work of gathering estimates or I had to take the pics.
Farmers had me paid in 7 days of the accident (5 business days) with solid communication all the way through. AAA told me to send pics and then I heard nothing until a check arrived 10 business days later.
AAA = okay
Farmers = better
Glad it worked out for you. I like Avalons.
John Welsh said:
Sure, the at-fault company was AAA.
Actually, another car of mine was hit last year by Farmers. In a few days, a guy came directly to my house to write estimate and I had a check in my hand in exactly 7 days after the accident happened. They did a much better job then AAA.
Farmers came right to me. With AAA I had to do the work of gathering estimates or I had to take the pics.
Farmers had me paid in 7 days of the accident (5 business days) with solid communication all the way through. AAA told me to send pics and then I heard nothing until a check arrived 10 business days later.
This is actually the "wave of the future". The days of having an appraiser come to you to see the car are greatly diminishing. They'll likely never 100% go away, but they're being scaled back significantly and that trend will continue. Only about 5% of vehicles through my company are seen by an appraiser going out to the persons' home or shop, and that's the way I want it. Technology advances have really changed the face of this side of the business. Many companies already offer the ability to take photos of your own car, and even that will continue to evolve (it's a project I'm working on) to get faster and more efficient.
The fail I see in your story is that the AAA adjuster should have called you to explain the process. That part is key in making this process work as designed. There should have been a letter included with the estimate to explain things too.
Another fail on AAA's part was that they instructed me to download the AAA app for the claim.
What they failed to realize was that their app requires you to log in with your account number. Since I am not insured by AAA, I have no account number and can not log in and can not use their app.
Still not a horrible experience, just some bumps.
