I was driving to WSOP, in the middle of nowhere at 2am, going around a blind curve on the highway at 75 and there was a deer chilling in the other lane that I would have annihilated if I lost the lane coinflip. I don’t think that blasting through it would have worked out well for me either.
I’ve got zero moose experience, so I’ll take y’alls word for it.
So if it’s a moose you’re suppose to swerve and if it’s a deer you just keep going straight?
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It’s not supposed to work out well. It’s just supposed to reduce your risk of death or injury compared to trying to avoid. Or so I’m led to believe.
Trying to avoid would have had a decent chance of sending me through a guardrail and off a cliff, so that seems reasonable.
Has anyone here experienced getting lowballed on a total loss offer? Right now is a really bad time for that to happen.
How much lower is the insurance company offer versus the online “blue books”?
Obviously moose are a bigger problem but hitting a deer on the highway is no small thing and can wreck your car. Everyone in rural MN drives a huge truck so they can probably just blast through them. The play is definitely to slow down and not swerve off the road or into oncoming traffic to avoid it, the only probably becomes the cars behind you not paying attention.
My only experience with a total was my old shitty Subaru and insurance gave me way more than I could have ever sold it for.
I had a older, parked car sideswiped and totaled by an old woman with likely dementia. We had the same insurance company.
When the adjuster over the phone quoted me the blue book value, I told him truthfully that I had just put a new exhaust system in the car. As I remember, he increased the payout by at least a few hundred dollars. 
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Ranges from $500 to $3500 before taxes. I’ve priced every comp within a 500-mile radius and the $3500 number is closer but still slightly low. One issue with the valuation isn’t a matter of opinion: they straight up borked the vehicle’s packages and options in the estimation software, and that resulted in a significant discounting of the value ($500 to $1,000). So at a bare minimum I expect that to be corrected.
The larger piece of the discrepancy is not valuing the condition and mileage correctly which is super annoying. The totaled vehicle was in immaculate condition with only 50% of average miles for the model year. Their comps are previously-wrecked vehicles on shady used car lots with mileage differentials ranging from +35k to +60k. Then they “adjust” those values to the totaled car using some fudge factors, which, of course they do because the actual comps with similar mileage that haven’t been wrecked cost several thousand more. I’m way less confident they budge on this part though.
*Also, I’m not even including Carmax and Carvana in the comps I’ll provide since apparently these adjusters get super tilted by that. They claim both “cost too much” and don’t reflect true market prices. The irony of that is they are the fucking market now if you wan’t a non-wrecked car with a clean title. Similarly, my reputable Lexus dealership costs considerably more than Tom-Bob’s Auto Mart because they have unwrecked cars with a service history and provenance.
Which Blue Blook value? There’s private party, trade-in (AKA auction, wholesale, Black Book), and dealer / retail. The standard for total loss valuation, at least in my state, is Actual Cash Value (ACV) which is a nearly meaningless term that isn’t the same as any of those. They seem to be interpreting it as average condition private party value which is garbage given that most cars are sold by dealers. There’s a 0% chance I’d cut a $25k check to an unknown private party for a daily driver automobile. A few states seem to at least have laws making dealer / retail the fair level of comp in a total loss valuation.
This was a 10 year old car which was totaled in 2004, so I’m really fuzzy on the details.
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I’ve had a similar experience. I think it helps to understand you actually have quite a bit of leverage over your adjuster. They don’t have the right to just name their price, you must accept it. And the adjuster is likely under some sort of pressure to close cases. Unless you need the money now, they’re under more time pressure than you are.
I was given all sorts of excuses for my low offer (“the software won’t let me input your car’s exact specs/conditions, this setting that shorts you $2k is the best I could get”, “our policy only allows us to consider x, y, z.”). Your documentation certainly helps back your case, but keep things simple. Limitations on their end are their problem and they can certainly find a way to magically solve them given the proper motivation. You need to replace your car with a similar car, and $X is your cost to do so. Shut down the excuses and keep the negotiation focused on the $X.
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Yeah thanks, this is what I expected and what I was curious about.
What’s your insurance company?
When my car got totaled a few years ago, I expected a flight with the insurance company. Their first offer was about $400 more than I was going to demand.
Deer are a huge issue in upstate NY. I’ve never hit one but you see them all the time and I’ve had some close calls. There’s not much you can do. I was passenger in a car that hit a deer. Never even saw the deer but insurance called the car a total loss.
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Nationwide. If they had valued the options correctly, then the number comes back at the low end of the range I was expecting and I probably wouldn’t have looked at it more closely. The package bundle they are listing for my car is impossible and it really screws up the valuation. So then that forced me to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, and I’m pretty insulted that the comps they chose are like the shittiest, high-mileage wrecked cars covered in dirt on shady used car lots.
I love America. You pay your car insurance on time, shipping thousands of dollars to the insurance company as a loyal customer. Then when your car gets totaled, you are no longer the customer, you’re the enemy, and you have to negotiate with them. Best case, you get what you’re owed. They get to freeroll you.
It brings a tear to the eye.
In what country does this work differently? Serious question.
I know we suck at health insurance, but I didn’t realize it was car insurance too.
Sorry, I forgot the background story. Were you hit or did you hit something? Is it your insurance company (Nationwide) that’s going to pay you out or is it someone elses?
I know when somebody at work had their car totalled, they supplied numbers from all around the area to justify the number they were looking for. It took him awhile but he got the number he wanted (it was a vintage F150).
I have no idea to be honest. I just assume that we’re leading the way in under regulation of shitty insurance.