Minnesota
I bought a used 2007 Hyundai Tucson yesterday for $3,000. I put full-coverage on the car yesterday afternoon. There is a $500 deductible. Last night my 18 year-old daughter, who has only had her license for one week, hit a cement pole in a parking lot. She was alone and not injured.
The hood and front bumper were damaged and the radiator was ruined. The vehicle still runs fine and the lights work fine. I was able to drive it to a body shop and it ran fine on the way there even though the radiator dripped the entire time. I explained at the body shop that I didn't really care how it looked, I just wanted it to run. Meanwhile, I called the insurance company and was told I should probably get an estimate before submitting a claim. They explained that with a new driver on the account and with an at-fault accident on a vehicle just added to the account my rate was going to go way, way up, possibly 3 or 4 times what it had been. I was told that if the estimate wasn't too high then I would be quite a bit better off in the long run paying for getting it fixed than I would be by submitting a claim.
Then the body shop called and said that there were bent parts that needed to be replaced and they were already at $1,800 dollars just for parts and that didn't even include the cost of a hood or the labor. They recommended not getting it fixed and just totaling the vehicle.
So now I have a choice, do I submit a claim and have my rate increase greatly or do I just take the $3,000 loss?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
I bought a used 2007 Hyundai Tucson yesterday for $3,000. I put full-coverage on the car yesterday afternoon. There is a $500 deductible. Last night my 18 year-old daughter, who has only had her license for one week, hit a cement pole in a parking lot. She was alone and not injured.
The hood and front bumper were damaged and the radiator was ruined. The vehicle still runs fine and the lights work fine. I was able to drive it to a body shop and it ran fine on the way there even though the radiator dripped the entire time. I explained at the body shop that I didn't really care how it looked, I just wanted it to run. Meanwhile, I called the insurance company and was told I should probably get an estimate before submitting a claim. They explained that with a new driver on the account and with an at-fault accident on a vehicle just added to the account my rate was going to go way, way up, possibly 3 or 4 times what it had been. I was told that if the estimate wasn't too high then I would be quite a bit better off in the long run paying for getting it fixed than I would be by submitting a claim.
Then the body shop called and said that there were bent parts that needed to be replaced and they were already at $1,800 dollars just for parts and that didn't even include the cost of a hood or the labor. They recommended not getting it fixed and just totaling the vehicle.
So now I have a choice, do I submit a claim and have my rate increase greatly or do I just take the $3,000 loss?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
