Car hit my house, driver's insurance won't cover full estimate.

What is the name of your state? Texas

Hello,

While I was away on vacation, my house was hit by a car. Luckily the driver left her name and number, and was insured. The insurance adjustor came out and his estimate was for $4900.00, after depreciation, the offer was $4300.00. I got a contractor, recommended by the adjustor, and the contractor's estimate is $7300.00, and he said once everything gets out, the amout of the depreciation will go up, becuase the estimate went up.. I should not be responsible for the depreciation, as I would not have had to pay any out of pocket expenses if the house didn't get hit. So, who is responsible for the depreciation?? Should her car insurance be responsible for the whole thing, is she personally responsible for the depreciation??

Thanks...

You have a few choices. Contact your homeowner's insurance company, and let them deal with it. You'd have to pay your deductible, but you'd get it back. Or, call the adjuster, and ask for his supervisor. You should also probably get another estimate.

Sue them or get your insurance to pay and sue them for the deductible. (And, having your insurance company sue them for the claim in subrogation.) Depreciation? How is that a part of the measure for damages? Unless the house jumped into the street, the vehicle is at fault and all the insurance company can do is to lower the damages. They did good by steering you to one of their people to do repairs. At least they know they're not getting a too-high estimate. Tort remedies are to make people whole. If it costs $7,300 to bring the house back up to where it was, that's the damage. The argument will be if you want to bring it up to current code rather than the code in force at the time it was built. Then you can "depreciate" the repair bill a bit. (Although I wouldn't use the word in that way.)

You do have to pay for depreciation because when the repair is done, your house will be in better shape then it was before the accident. The driver's insurance only has to pay to get you back to exactly where you were before the accident - you are responsible for the cost of the "betterment".

ecmst12 said:

You do have to pay for depreciation because when the repair is done, your house will be in better shape then it was before the accident. The driver's insurance only has to pay to get you back to exactly where you were before the accident - you are responsible for the cost of the "betterment".

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That's a very specific statement to make without any facts. How, for example, would one, new non-load bearing wall be "better" than the one that was hit? (What is the value of "used" sheetrock and mud?)

As someone already pointed out, if the repairs actually do "better" the property (i.e. fixing electrical that wasn't up to code), the insurance company may have a point. If it's replacing a damaged wall, then, well, not so much.

Actually I was making a very general statement, not talking about whether the AMOUNT they're taking off for depreciation is appropriate, or what the depreciation is on. I was just saying generally speaking, depreciation/betterment is an acceptable deduction from an insurance claim award.

The OP got a quote from the insurance company allied contractor that it would cost a certain amount to fix the wall. The insurance company will not be able to discount the amount by "depreciation" because the wall will now be new rather than 10 or 100 years old. Heck, let's have the OP say a new wall will decrease the value of the property. To bring him whole, he wants the contractor to use paints, lumber, wiring and whatnot from the period the house was built to assure similarity of design and construction. And, to make sure there is not a reduction for "depreciation". This will cost thousands more. So, the question is, will the insurance company try to make the OP whole by choosing appropriate materials/techniques or will they choose currently-common ones to save themselves money?

Have them fix the wall to where it was before accident. Don't accept "depreciation".

ecmst12 said:

You do have to pay for depreciation because when the repair is done, your house will be in better shape then it was before the accident. The driver's insurance only has to pay to get you back to exactly where you were before the accident - you are responsible for the cost of the "betterment".

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With the exception of a few wear items like paint and roofing houses and their components do NOT depreciate.

When a neighbor drove through our house we had our insurance cover it since we had coverage that paid for full value, no depreciation. They then went after her insurance to get money back.
At first they were saying they would not pay for vinyl windows. We were in the process of updating an 100 yo house and vinyl was what we were replacing the woods one with.(this was a part of the house we had not updated yet) We were going to have to pay the difference they said. I was all set to go start pricing antique glass, since that was what we had in them. They changed their mind before I had to go that far. I am sure they realized there was no way to make them anywhere near what they had been for less than the cost of vinyl. They were huge bay windows. They even paid for the cost of wallpaper even though we had it painted instead, which was cheaper.
The one thing they did not do was make the foundation exactly the same. We would have had to go out of pocket to get the old stone. That was ok with us since it just had corner supports before and we got a full brick one that still went well with the house.
Sorry your house got hit!