The body shop finally completed the repairs on my Maverick. I went to pay them and it was $4k more than I was expecting. They requested another supplement from my insurance company but my insurance company never let me know. Apparently the office manager at the body shop called my insurance company yesterday, asking where the hell the check from them was. They are supposedly mailing the body shop the check. The total for all the work was pretty close to the initial estimate of ~$11k.
Let's recap:
Date of loss: May 30th, 2024
Date body shop estimate was submitted to insurance: June 20th, 2024
Date claim was submitted: June 30th, 2024
Date truck was dropped off at the body shop: Sept 9th, 2024
Date insurance company adjuster performed their estimate: Sept 10th, 2024
Date work actually started: Nov 20th, 2024
Date work was completed: January 6th, 2025
My insurance company took over 3 months to process the claim, then sent their appraiser out the day after it went into the body shop. This caused significant delays as the insurance company low balled the hell out of their estimate. Mean while my truck is sitting at the body shop with no work being done since the shop was waiting on approval. I'm driving a rental car, which my policy only covers about 40% of (the rest was out of pocket) and I'm burning through the 30 days that I'm eligible for a rental.
Then once a price is agreed upon between the body shop and insurance company, the insurance company sends me the check instead of paying the shop directly, which is the opposite of what I specifically requested. But they sent 2 out of the 3 checks to me and one to the body shop, which confused everyone.
My claims handler was never available to answer my calls or messages. It would take her weeks to return my call. The body shop kept calling, trying to light a fire under their ass but got nowhere.
I went to pay today and the shop charges a 4% transaction fee on credit card transactions, which I totally understand. This could have been completely avoided if they were paid directly as I specifically told my insurance company to do in the first place. I called my financial institution and had them cut a teller's check to the shop which will save me almost $300 in transaction fees.
The body shop was awesome to work with. The owner let me take the truck home even though they didn't get paid yet. They did fantastic work though!
But yeah, I'm done with my insurance company. I have been with them 22 years. I can't stand incompetence. They really pissed me off.