Auto insurance claim questions

[thstone]

For a real world example, my son's BMW X5 was hit by someone who ran a red light in May.

I drove the car to a local body shop and got an estimate. The insurance came back and said that it was likely a total loss.

Their first valuation offer was $5,400 which I didn't agree with. Comparable cars ranged from $4,500 to $9,000 (these were my comps. All of their comps were $4,00-$6000). I was willing to meet in the middle of my range. They weren't. They insisted on paying nothing more than $6K. After endless arguing, I settled for $7,309. But it took lots of phone calls, emails, and working with their management to get what I felt was fair. It was not an enjoyable experience but in the end, I got $2,309 more than I would have otherwise. Was it worth it? I thought so, but it did take a lot of time and effort.

The other advantage that I had was that I didn't need their money to buy my son a replacement car and I didn't need their rental to get him around. We turned in the rental within a two weeks when I bought him a replacement car (2008 Mini Cooper S) so I didn't have any time pressure to have to settle for less.