Marty300

Wifes car (2018 Ford Edge 7,000 miles on it) got rear ended, not her fault, other driver was charged at fault Estimate came in at $10,800 so insurance company had it fixed. Car looks and drives fine. For ****s and giggles she went to another dealer to possibly trade it in on an explorer, They run the carfax report and it came back with structural damage reported and said the car was only worth $17,000 now because of structural damage.
The structural damage was probably the rear floor pan. They did have to pull on it a bit the guy told me.
Contacted a few places on the internet and they are telling me I've lost $9 to $10K in value on the car because of the accident and I have a great case to file. Just give us $550 for the report.
Anyone had luck filing a diminished value loss claim?
Marty

FerdinandF150

You don't need to pay anyone to prove diminishment of value. Contact the at fault parties insurance company and tell then you want them to pay for the diminishment. It won't be $9k, more like $3k (maybe $4k if you can squeeze them.) I've had a few accidents that caused frame damage, never been paid more than 35% of the cost to repair in diminishment.

Richard Herrera

I had a friend whose BMW got hit. The insurance quickly fix the damage and tried to close out the claim but my buddy said he wanted payment for loss of value. It didn't take much for him to get an additional $4K out the the insurance company.

h2ouup2

Check the state in which you live. You can get diminished value if you live in a state that allows it AFTER the repair. Some states you have to ask for it before the repair. Take the reports of the dealers, and show how much it would be without damage as a trade (personal sale actually), and how much after. Go for that amount which will be more than insurance. Since the car has already been fixed you most likely won't get the full amount but 3-4K sounds reasonable.

I tell everyone I talk to try to negotiate it before the repairs, problem is not many people think about it, or even know about it.

Off topic: While you are at it, call your homeowners insurance agent and make sure you have what is called Ordinance of Law insurance. This is insurance that pays for code upgrades to your home in case of covered repair by insurance. Example. Say you need a new roof and have 1x8 decking. Code in Oklahoma/Texas states you need a solid deck, which translates to 4'x8', 7/16" OSB. This can get quite expensive fast, but if you have O&L insurance on your home they pay for it once the repairs are completed. This can be on average 7-8K. It also brings other items up to code like vents, HVAC pipes, etc. The price for all this you ask? Mine is $50 year, and covers 120K.

Earlier I said you can get it in blocks of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% coverage. The % of coverage is based on the total amount of your dwelling policy limit. If you have 100K house and 10% coverage the insurance will pay up to $10,000 in code upgrades. A lot of insurance has it built in, but there are many that do not! As bad as diminished value on you car is, you actually don't lose any money until you sell it, and keep it long enough, and the diminished value will decline over time. On the house, once there is damage you have to bring it to code, either you pay, or insurance pays. Do yourself a favor, and get O&L insurance. It's cheap and can pay off big time if you happen to have to use it.

Marty300

After getting the car appraised after the accident, which came in at $19,000, I have sent off the paperwork to the other persons insurance company asking for $9160. That number was the differance in retail value of the car pre and post accident,
Appraiser told me (at least here in Indiana) the car would be a tough sell now because banks and finance companies will not finance a car with structure damage listed on its carfax report, so you would have to hope they had cash to buy it. A second thing he told me was if it got hit in the rear again, some insurance companies would make note of the previous accident damage to the same area, then screw me on the value of the car (currently $19,000) making it easier to total out instead of repairing it again, then leaving me way under water on the loan.

See what happens next, they should get the packet in the mail today.

Marty

FerdinandF150

Which model Edge is it? I'm seeing private party anywhere from roughly $21k to $31k based on model.
You should look into adding Gap insurance, its little money for piece of mind, especially since the second you drove it off the lot it depreciated in value.

HBWT

For this exact reason, many people declare they are injured and expect to receive some sort of compensation and at least get close/closer to being made whole again. IMO, insurance adjusters have but one job, minimize losses...the injured party be damned.

jeffinthebag

You should always have gap insurance just in case.

Gamecock

Similar thing happened with my wife's Murano years back. We took it to someone we know that own's a body shop (a good one, work mostly on Porsche's and high end stuff, even race cars) and they had someone in-house that helped us get more for diminished value. We paid them a little, like $300, but they ended up getting us an extra $1200-1500 if I remember right. Same sort of accident, young girl not paying attention and slammed the back, was like $8K estimate but the car was driveable and didn't even look THAT bad. But they replaced the exhausts, tailgate lift, bumper, cover, etc.

I did it just to save myself the back and forth with insurance and the time saved. The owner of the shop used to own an insurance company too so they knew exactly what to ask, say, do.