Can I demand other parties insurance repair my vehicle?

[hacksalot]

What is the name of your state? California
My parked vehicle was hit and damaged at work by another party. It's 7 years old with 190K miles. It's been a great, reliable vehicle in great condition, and intended to keep it for a long time. I didn't want to buy another vehicle and get back into car payments and higher insurance at this point in my life. Unfortunately, because of age and miles, it's only worth about $3500 according to Blue Book. Insurance says it's about 10K to fix and only want to total it and pay me the value of the vehicle. Can I demand other parties insurance pay for repairs, or do I have to accept their offer to total the car and give me it's Blue Book value?

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state? California
My parked vehicle was hit and damaged at work by another party. It's 7 years old with 190K miles. It's been a great, reliable vehicle in great condition, and intended to keep it for a long time. I didn't want to buy another vehicle and get back into car payments and higher insurance at this point in my life. Unfortunately, because of age and miles, it's only worth about $3500 according to Blue Book. Insurance says it's about 10K to fix and only want to total it and pay me the value of the vehicle. Can I demand other parties insurance pay for repairs, or do I have to accept their offer to total the car and give me it's Blue Book value?

I am sorry but they do have the legal right to choose to total the car and give you it's value. Now, you can try to fight to get the value raised based on the condition of the car, but the number of miles on it could make that difficult.

 

[adjusterjack]

Can I demand other parties insurance pay for repairs, or do I have to accept their offer to total the car and give me it's Blue Book value?

You can "demand" anything you want but it isn't going to happen.

You are free to spend $10,000 to repair your car, send them the bill, but you will only be entitled to the $3500 ACV (Actual Cash Value) of the car less the salvage value that the insurance company loses by you keeping the car so you will actually get much less than the $3500.