Life changing accident

[Richard C D]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Georgia

Three weeks ago I was traveling home from a family function with my 8 month pregnant wife and 3 year old daughter on a 4 lane divided highway. We were in our 2003 Trailblazer and as we went through an intersection a car turned left right in front of us and we t-boned them going roughly 50 mph. The other driver was obviously sited and there was a 3rd car involved. My car has been totalled and my wife banged her knee pretty bad, scrapped her elbow and my 3 year old was struck in the face with a portable DVD player(dont ever buy one of those!). We dont know the effects the unborn baby will have for a few more weeks. I suffered a concusion which the effects last roughly a week.

With that said the insurance company has offered us $17k for property damage as they said Georgia has a soft market. The car had 36k miles on it! At any rate I am curious what kind of compensation I should expect and should I enlist a lawyer for other damages. I am not out sue anyone I just want this insurance company to make it right!

 

[teflon_jones]

First of all, sorry to hear about the accident and I hope that your baby is ok.

First of all, let's cover the property loss. Was your vehicle totalled? If so, go to www.nada.com and price out what it's worth. That should be what you receive for it. If it wasn't totalled, you're lucky you're in Georgia since it is one of the few states that has ruled in favor of diminished value. This means you're entitled to the damages plus some amount for the lowered value of your vehicle due to the accident.

Now let's look at the personal injury side of this. I imagine your wife has had an ultrasound and everything checked out ok? You'll need to wait for the birth to see if anything else comes up, but the good news is that (keep in mind I'm not a doctor!) from what I know, normally this means everything should be fine. For the other injuries you, your wife, and your child had, you're entitled to medical bills plus possibly some small amount for pain and suffering. If you just want to make this right, then you're jumping the gun by already talking about lawyers. Wait to see what they offer you.

 

[Richard C D]

The site you referred to offers the $17k number for my car. So they are trying to force us to take a check for the property damages now so they can get out old car out of storage (costing them everyday it sits there). I am afraid of 2 things, one they have not committed to cover the rental car and two they might tell us to turn in the rental car once we take them money. 17k will not buy a new car equal to the one we had.

So we wait on the other which is medical etc...I do not want to get the lawyer involved as it will simply slow things down. Do you think I should take the property damage now and wait to see what they do on the other or tell them to make a lump sum offer? This will cause urgency as they have my car rotting and costing them money.

 

[weenor]

As I am sure you are aware vehicles suffer a tremendous amount of devaluation when driven off the lot. That's the way it is and your not going to get anywhere by simply saying that 17k is not enough to replace your vehicle. We all know that.

I will tell you that every once in while, I have talked insurance companies into valuing a totalled car by the other cars in the area. You would have to find one or more cars (preferrably 3) that are the same make, model mileage and condition of your totalled one that are for sale in your area. If you can show the adjuster that these cars are selling for more than 17k you might, might get more.

It is not uncommon to settle property damage early on and leave the personal injury portion for later.

 

[Richard C D]

Yes at this point, I am most concerned with the rental car being payed for by them not out of my pocket and accepting a settlement on the property damage will not result in me hurting my personal damages claims later. Are they seperate? Is there any way of gauging what makes it all better as far as personal and injury damage is concerned? How much should one expect for the type of injuries that we substained?