Collision

[phillipsg]

What is the name of your state? ID

What is the name of your state? ID

My wife was in an accident with another driver a few days ago. The other driver was speeding, lost control of his vehicle and hydroplaned in front of my wife causing her to T-bone him in his driver side door. He then spun around and T-boned her in her driver door. (Sounds odd I know). The other driver was cited by the police and was able to drive his vehicle away. Our car was towed due to the damage it suffered. We've filed a claim with our insurance, but the registered owner of the other vehicle has not yet filed a claim with their insurance company. Based upon the damage, it's my opinion that our vehicle should be considered a total loss. My insurance company on the other hand says the damage is not extensive enough to consider it a total loss. My concern with repairing the vehicle is that it will not be as structurally sound as it was prior to the accident and wouldn't perform as well in a future collision. My other issue is that our vehicle was only 2 yrs old (2005). For all intents and purposes it was new, had excellent maintenance history and was still under warranty (in fact it had 5yrs of a 7yr extended warranty left on it). After being repaired, my warranty will obviously be voided and I will have no recourse on getting anything on it fixed down the road. Bottom line is this accident was not my wife's fault. I believe we should be compensated for the price we paid for the car in 2005, including the 5 remaining years on the extended warranty we also purchased. My wife has been on pain medication and muscle relaxants since the accident and I would think that she's entitled to at least a little compensation for her pain and suffering as well. Basically I feel like we're being asked to give up quite a bit and accept so much less than we feel we should get in return. Why should we have to be put under the burden of having to drive a repaired vehicle and putting our family's safety in jeopardy? Is this worth contacting a lawyer about to see if he could obtain more than the insurance company is willing to compensate us for? I'm by no means out for blood, but I also don't want to roll over and take a settlement that isn't fair to us.

[ecmst12]

YOU can file a claim with the other driver's insurance and see if they make you a better offer. Your car is newer and so worth a decent amount. The amount of damage does not approach or exceed the value, so it's not a total loss. That's GOOD, because in a car that's only 2 years old, the chances are very good that you owe more then it's worth. So if they'd totalled it out, you'd end up with nothing - if you have gap insurance on your loan, you wouldn't have any payments to make, but you'd have no money and no car. This way, they do the repair and you still have a car.

If your warrenty is in fact voided just because you had an accident, then it would be valid to claim the pro-rated cost for the remaining 5 years on the warrenty. That would be a claim against the other driver's insurance, not yours. You can also google and see if your state recognizes "diminished value" claims. Most don't, but if yours does, you can try putting in a claim for whatever decrease in value your vehicle had as a result of being involved in a serious accident.