Car repairs by insurance are the bare minimum- not fair!

by Bill

Farmers Insurance Company insured damaged my car and is liable. The left front hood of a Volvo 850 has a dent and needs repair and painting.

Farmers refuses to paint the entire hood and blend the fenders. It will be obvious that a part of the hood was damaged and painted. They are repairing the lights/wiper motor and replacing the grill.

My bone of contention here is that they are doing the bare minimum.

The repair shop is very good and reasonable but Farmers will not agree with me they need to paint and blend in the repair.

There are some rock chips in the paint and they don't want to paint because it would be a betterment. I wouldn't be here if it was not for the damages. It seems the right thing to do would be paint the hood and blend.

Is there any recourse ?

Thanks for your time and opinion.

Bill

Answer:

Hi Bill,

I understand your situation. You were not asked to be put in that position. Now, they want to fix your car with the bare minimum and they do not want to do anything that would be considered a "betterment."

It is questionable whether or not you will be in a better position by painting the hood. However, If they put you in a situation that is slightly better than you were before of the accident, so be it. They hit you and you did nothing wrong.

You have several options. 1. You can argue with the more and see if that changes their perspective, 2. You can contact the department of insurance or the office of the insurance commissioner and report them for not paying for all your damages. 3. You can eat it and pay out of pocket or 4. You can sue the person that hit you.

Remember, just because insurance companies do not believe that they owe something, it does not mean that the person that hit you does not. You must be fully compensated for your damages, and only a judge can really tell you what that is.

Small claims court is a great venue for this type of thing. It is cheap to file and you can explain to a judge why the car needs to be painted. There is no legal or insurance help allowed in small claims court, so the person that hit you would have to explain why the insurance company did not want to pay.

Usually, the insurance company gets moving when they see lawsuits and their clients get mad at their insurance company for not talking care of them. It gives you some leverage.

I know that it very hard and inconvenient to be dealing with people that hit you and they don't want to pay. But just because they say they won't it does not mean that a court will not make them.

I hope this helps,