Betterment charge for damage that happened later

[Danirenee2517]

California
I had my car hit and ran in a parking lot in November 2013, I had the luck of another person leaving the guys license plate # on my windshield. The police brought the owner of the vehicle down to give me his insurance information he said he has state farm put didn't have his policy number but left me his personal information. He wanted to just pay outright for my car and i agreed to give him that chance. When he hadn't followed through and was putting me off after a few months i called state farm and hunted down his policy and reported it. Well going through the process my car got hit an ran again in just about the same spot. State farm approved my claim but they are trying to take a betterment charge of $500 off, so i cant even pay for the damage that their client caused to my car. I have pictures proving the damage that was done by their client and a quote from 6 days after their client hit my car proving the damage from them. Is there anyway I can fight this?

 

[ecmst12]

If you have an appraisal done before the additional damage occurred, absolutely. File in small claims court against the person who hit you.

 

[justalayman]

State farm approved my claim but they are trying to take a betterment charge of $500 off, so i cant even pay for the damage that their client caused to my car. I have pictures proving the damage that was done by their client and a quote from 6 days after their client hit my car proving the damage from them. Is there anyway I can fight this?

just to be clear; in the above statement, are you talking about the damage done by the first or second incident? If the first, then read ecmst12's post again. If the second incident, you cannot defeat their argument because it is true. The at fault party is liable to return you to the condition prior to the damage they caused. In this case, there would already be damage to that area so they only need to return you to the condition it was already in (the damage from the first incident remaining). Since they really can't do that, they applied the betterment discount.

 

[Danirenee2517]

just to be clear; in the above statement, are you talking about the damage done by the first or second incident? If the first, then read ecmst12's post again. If the second incident, you cannot defeat their argument because it is true. The at fault party is liable to return you to the condition prior to the damage they caused. In this case, there would already be damage to that area so they only need to return you to the condition it was already in (the damage from the first incident remaining). Since they really can't do that, they applied the betterment discount.

I'm talking about the damage from the first incident
Thank you both for the advice

 

[Danirenee2517]

If you have an appraisal done before the additional damage occurred, absolutely. File in small claims court against the person who hit you.

I have a quote from a shop that i gave to the insurance company that was before the second damage accord.
Then after the second damage accord before the insurance came out to do an appraisal and now they want to take money off their appraisal for the second damage.

 

[justalayman]

as long as you have proof of the damages (the value of them) prior to the second accident, the first person to hit you is responsible for that amount of money. If the insurance company wants to play hard ball, you can sue the at fault party.