Insurance companies are morons

[JayG]

Ok, this is not specifically Porsche related, but could apply

In mid July my wife and I were in our Jetta going to dinner and were stopped at a red light. About 30 seconds after we stopped, we got rear-ended by a minivan and were pushed about 1-2 feet forward. I immediately got out and there didn't look like much damage to the car. I motioned to the dumbass driver of the minivan to follow us into a parking lot just past the intersection.

We parked, I took a better look at the damage and it was minor, you could see an imprint in the bumper from the minivans license plate bolts. The woman came out of her car, looked at the bumper and said there was no damage and it was just a slight tap. She then proceed to tell me that she had been rubbing both eyes and did not see us. I thought to myself BS, you were texting on your phone.

I ask her for her license, registration and insurance info and copied the info. While I was doing this she took a picture of our bumper with her phone. I gave her back her paperwork and went to the drivers window to ask my wife for her documents and the other driver drove off.

Got back into our car and we both started to feel some pain from the impact. As we were hungry, we had dinner and then decided to go see the Doc.

Fast forward a few weeks....

We are both in physical therapy for the injuries and finally I was able to get State farm ( the dumbass's insurance company) to come out and do an estimate on our car for the damage. I was concerned that the alignment may have been tweaked a bit and asked that it be checked. the estimator told me that this kind of accident does not normally cause alignment issues, but if I was concerned ask the body shop to have it checked and if it was off, then it would be fixed. Dropped the car off last Friday at the body shop and they told me it should be done on Tuesday as it was basically a sand and respray on the bumper cover.

Tuesday comes and goes and the body shop calls me on Wednesday saying they need to get approval from State farm as it required a little more labor than the $500 estimate State Farm did and it would be another day or so because of that. I didn't care as I have a rental care State Farm is paying for. I asked about the alignment and they told me State Farm would not pay for it.

5 or 6 phone calls later with State Farm arguing with them over what amounts to less than $100 for an alignment and they told me that the body shop drove the car and told them the alignment was fine. How driving the car proves the alignment meets specs is beyond me. I did not know that you can tell if Toe or caster or Camber is not off by a few 10th of a degree by driving.

All this time I was just asking that it be checked and IF the alignment was off that it be fixed.

Now it is Friday morning, I am still fighting with State Farm , they tell me that if I get it checked and if it needs to be aligned and I pay for it I can submit the receipt for reimbursement.. Finally I get a call back from a manager and explain that if they don't do the right thing now, get the alignment checked and corrected if needed that their actions will force me to retain an attorney and at the end of the day will cost them way more than the $100 for the alignment.

They tell me they will call the body shop and discuss it with them and get back to me whether or not they will pay for an alignment check/repair. An hour or so later I get a call from the body shop and they tell me State Farm approved the alignment, but the car won't be ready to pickup until Monday as they can't get the alignment done until Monday as it was too late in the day to get it taken care of. Had they gotten the approval even as late as mid morning , it would have been done today.

So the end result is State Farm will pay the $100 for they alignment and on top of that 3 more days of car rental. I guess trying to save $100, cost them $250 as the rental car is around $50/day.

Pretty smart, huh?

So we will get the car back on Monday and my wife and I have a few more weeks of PT. I can't wait to negotiate the settlement once we are both healthy again. Might just have to retain an attorney after all.