Unfair Claims Settlement Provision

[rzkas]

hi? pls i need help.
during the snow, i had an accident with my vehicle. i called my insurance company and they gave me a claimed number. they sent an adjuster to come do an estimate. the adjuster estimated the car and the estimate i got from a shop did not match up or even come close to price the adjuster quoted the repair for. i told the adjuster no, his estimate is not right. he offered he want to see more details on the car with parts taken off the car. i told him the shop that did the estimate is willing to tear down the car. we took the car to the shop. he went and have them disassemble some parts so he can have a better view to write out his estimate. he kept going there to check on the car for over two months and half. the car remained in the shop. when ever he goes to the shop he will change his estimate price but he never get to the price the shop quoted me for. finally he said that all he can do, i needed my car so i said OK but the shop will not be able to fix my car for that price. therefore i had to take it out and look for another shop that will do it for a reasonable price. when i went to get my car out of the shop, the shop charge me for disassembling the parts and also storage for all the time the car was in their yard. i needed my car so i paid the cost out of the check the adjuster gave me.
but according to unfair claims settlement which states that all investigation and estimate must be done in 30 days and this adjuster took about a month and half. who is responsible to pay the shop for the storage fee and disassembling the car and the labor spent to show him preparing the car for him to come do his estimate?
i paid the cost to get my car out of the shop plus the towing cost. after taking some insurance classes and i felt i was ripped off because of the provision of unfair claims settlement. pls help me because i want to contact the commissioner's office about this issue but i want to get bedded with more information about my situation before i call. thanks

 

[djs]

I'll warn you now, you won't like my response. I'll respond based on CA, WA may be different, but probably not.

First, let me say insurance companies are very aware of the 30 days to settle a claim. Most people are not aware this is easily extended, they just have to report it to the DOI with a short explanation of why it isn't done yet. Since they had made a settlement offer, this won't be much of an issue.

Storage fees and how they are paid is based somewhat on your policy, somewhat on the circumstances (within the policy limits). You are responsible to mitigate storage fees, which I'm sure if you read some of the letters you received regarding the claim, it will tell you this. This basically means you are responsible for the storage fees. Most of the time, the insurance company will pay a few days, but never anything more than a few (10, maybe, not likely).

An insurance company will usually pay for a tear down inspection if needed, though its usually not. It probably wasn't needed here, but I'll come back to that in a minute. Most insurance companies will not pay based on a body shops quote. This is long dead practice since body shops will want to repair everything, not just the damage caused by the accident. The fact the quote you got and what the adjuster offered initially didn't line up doesn't surprise me at all. There are methods in place to deal with this.

Normally when a claim starts, the adjuster will see the car at the body shop, sometimes write a check to you and the body shop (only you if you own the car) and the work will begin. The body shop will do the tear down, find more work needing to be done, call the adjuster, who will either authorize it or inspect it first and if he agrees, he will do a supplement (suppliemental payment) to the body shop for the extra work. In some jobs, this can happen a few times, because lets face it, sometimes you can't tell the extent of the damage till its taken apart. No body shop wants to take it apart multiple times.

The hitches come to play when the body shop overcharges for labor or parts, which happens in some cases, though most work from the 'book' when it comes to insurance repairs. If they don't, the settlement will never equal the quote. In simple terms, if you need your right front fender replaced and painted, every body shop will quote the same time to do the work (if its an insurance repair) because they quote from the book that tells them how long it will take to do it. Some minor differences will come into play because some body shops will add in some minor extra work, but they usually come through about the same.

An insurance company takes the time required, multiples it by the contract rate and comes up with the labor cost, which is almost always less than what they quote you directly, and then they argue over parts for a while. A check is then written.

Work is done, you pay your deductible, sign over the check to the body shop, all is done.

Having been through your EXACT story many times, I can tell you that the adjuster told you all of this several times. If you have an agent for your policy and he was involved, he told you all of this several times. Unfortunately, people want to know the outcome before the work starts, when its almost impossible to do that.

Go ahead and call the commissioners office. They will take this claim serious and investigate. At the end, the insurance company will show that they notified you of your responsibility to mitigate damages (i.e., storage bills) and that they were in contact with you regarding the claim, made a settlement offer, and actively worked a resolution. You will get a nice letter back from the commissioner saying thank you for your time, but the matter has been resolved to satisfaction of the commissioner (I've been down this road before as well).

To be honest, you need to find something that they should have paid and didn't before the claim gets very far. If the adjuster truly drug his feet on the claim, you might have an issue. Not sure how far it would go though.

Dan

 

[rzkas]

ok thanks. i will try my chances by filing a complain with the commissioner.

 

[djs]

What results do you expect?
I have no issues with you filing the complaint, just curious what you expect to happen....

Dan