Rear ended, car totalled, insurance cheapskates.

Howdy. I'm in Pennsylvania.

Last week my car was rear-ended by an inattentive driver. He and I share the same insurance company.

This morning I finally had my car in to the shop, facing $8500 in repairs plus a month of car rental, they totalled it.

It's a 2005 Honda Civic EX Special Edition with 51000 miles. They're only willing to pay me $10,8xx, which is a fair amount BELOW replacement cost if I can even find a Civic with zero problems and as low of mileage as mine with the same options package.

The claims adjuster (I imagine that's his title, anyhow. "The guy who called me to deliver the bad news") told me that that's what their (Progressive) system determined the payout should be based on the 50 closest vehicles of the same make, model, and options package and paying an average.

Doing a similar search to theirs (Pretty much just searching Autotrader and similar sites) I only found ONE EXSE coupe within 100 miles of me, the distance he said their search looks, and it was $1k over their offer, with over 50k miles more on it.

Am I going to have to seek an attorney to try and get them to pay me a more reasonable amount? Will it even be worth it? He already told me there's no changing it because their system is what they go by and nothing else.

Also I only have until Friday to get my title to them and get my check, apparently.

$10,xxx seems pretty close to the appropriate value for your car.
You don't get "replacement" cost...you get the actual value.

Counter with the ad you found. They may or may not negotiate. If this were to go to court, the comprehensive value report they use (which is based on sales, not ads) is going to stand up a lot better then your one measly ad.

Aran said:

This morning I finally had my car in to the shop, facing $8500 in repairs plus a month of car rental, they totalled it.

It's a 2005 Honda Civic EX Special Edition with 51000 miles. They're only willing to pay me $10,8xx, which is a fair amount BELOW replacement cost if I can even find a Civic with zero problems and as low of mileage as mine with the same options package.

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Since the repair is only $8500, tell the insurance company that you want your car repaired, or a more reasonable offer.

You should also look around for more similar cars. The KBB and NADA websites tend to overvalue the cars, but you're better off walking into court with those than nothing. You can probably figure out mileage adjustments from KBB and NADA. Find some similar cars, check the selling price, and check the NADA and KBB values. That should give you an idea how accurate those are.

Also I only have until Friday to get my title to them and get my check, apparently.

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Or else what?

Remember, the insurance company makes money by collecting premiums and NOT paying claims.

Is what they are offering is to by your loss (vehicle and all of your expense) for the sum of $10.8K. They are responsible to make you whole again. One thing that you should realize is that the prices for those vehicles were from owners that were planning to sell theire vehicles, not owners that spent the extra time and $ to keep the vehicle in top running condition for a long time.

You will need to know what the buy back is, before you plan to take their check and apply it to repairing the Honda.

And that Friday stuff is BS