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Friend totals car

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D

dfrates

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO.

My friend borrowed my car. She ran through a red light and totalled my vehicle. Accident was her fault. My insurance company covered the loss, however, the amount I received is not enough to buy a comparable vehicle. Does my friend have a legal responsibility to pay the difference?
 


Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
dfrates said:
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO.

My friend borrowed my car. She ran through a red light and totalled my vehicle. Accident was her fault. My insurance company covered the loss, however, the amount I received is not enough to buy a comparable vehicle. Does my friend have a legal responsibility to pay the difference?
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You are only entitled to receive the actual value of your vehicle.

ETA: That means "no"
 
D

dfrates

Junior Member
friend totals car

The Kelly blue book value is 18062.00. Insurance company only paid nada book of 12,600.00. Should she be responsible for the difference? Also, to buy my exact car today will cost 18,000.00. If my car is valued at 18000.00 isn't there any legal responsibility on the person that caused my vehicle to be totalled? How does the legal court determine the value of a vehicle? thank you.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
dfrates said:
The Kelly blue book value is 18062.00. Insurance company only paid nada book of 12,600.00. Should she be responsible for the difference? Also, to buy my exact car today will cost 18,000.00. If my car is valued at 18000.00 isn't there any legal responsibility on the person that caused my vehicle to be totalled? How does the legal court determine the value of a vehicle? thank you.
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You accepted $12,600 for it...
 
J

JakeB

Member
Your friend is responsible for paying you for whatever your car is worth. Your insurance company is probably contractually obligated to pay you for whatever your car is worth as well. You can only collect once. If you don't think you got what the car was worth from the insurance company, then you can either sue your friend or sue the insurance company. In court, you'll need to prove what your car was worth.

Of course, you may have signed something releasing the insurance company when you were given $12,600 (I have no idea). If so, then your only recourse is against your friend.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
JakeB said:
Your friend is responsible for paying you for whatever your car is worth. Your insurance company is probably contractually obligated to pay you for whatever your car is worth as well. You can only collect once. If you don't think you got what the car was worth from the insurance company, then you can either sue your friend or sue the insurance company. In court, you'll need to prove what your car was worth.

Of course, you may have signed something releasing the insurance company when you were given $12,600 (I have no idea). If so, then your only recourse is against your friend.
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Actually, OP has no recourse against the friend because if she WERE to collect anything, she is contractually obligated to turn it over to the insurance company ;)
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
JakeB said:
Totally irrelevant if you're implying that acceptance of $12,600 is proof of the car's value.
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Jake - you have to look at the bigger picture. Our OP is not going to get any more for this vehicle. She agreed that the value of the vehicle was $12,600 (plus her deductible, of course). The ins. co. valued it at either $13,100 or $13,600. She couldn't prove to them that it was worth more and she won't be able to prove it to anybody else. KBB is NOT an accurate measure of the actual value of a vehicle.
 
J

JakeB

Member
Zigner said:
Actually, OP has no recourse against the friend because if she WERE to collect anything, she is contractually obligated to turn it over to the insurance company ;)
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So you're saying that the friend can defend himself by arguing that if the OP were to win, the winnings would go to the insurance company? That's absurd. Even you should know better than that.

If your post was an awkward attempt to say that the insurance company may be entitled to some (or even all) of the OP's winnings, then that's probably correct. But it DOES NOT mean the OP has no recourse against the friend. The friend remains liable for his negligence.
 
J

JakeB

Member
Zigner said:
She agreed that the value of the vehicle was $12,600 (plus her deductible, of course).
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Accepting the money is not an agreement of the car's value, particularly so far as the friend's liability is concerned. You're just plain wrong.

The ins. co. valued it at either $13,100 or $13,600. She couldn't prove to them that it was worth more and she won't be able to prove it to anybody else. KBB is NOT an accurate measure of the actual value of a vehicle.
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She hasn't stated anything that implies she ever attempted to prove anything. And even if she did, and failed, the insurance company DOES NOT have the final say. Last, claiming that the KBB is not accurate is a meaningless argument. NADA is no more valid than KBB. More than likely, neither is correct.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Jake - please explain why our OP should go to the trouble of suing her friend only to have to turn the proceeds over to the insurance company.

FURTHERMORE, it's entirely possible that the OP has assigned ALL rights to seek compensation from the friend to her insurance company by accepting the payout.
 
J

JakeB

Member
Are you the negligent friend who smashed the car? Hmmmm. Why else would you so desparately try to convince the OP that there's no reason to go after the friend? Throwing out wild speculation that the OP assigned all rights to any recovery? An unlikely theory. You REALLY don't want the friend held liable.
 
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