re: Diminished Vehicle Value Lowball, Now What?

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Boosiebadazz


Found the blood sucking PI attorney

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Don't fault boosie and other PI attorneys for doing what they do. About 90% of the fault lies in insurance companies' own stupid policies of not paying a dime of medical bills until everything is settled and closed. Who in their right mind would sit on thousands of dollars of medical bills before knowing the outcome of their injuries?

Also insurance companies piss people off so much half the time in how they pay for the property damage, what they pay for, and the parts they use that most of the time claimants feel FORCED to grab up an attorney so they can get the extra money they feel they deserve. Not necessarily looking for a free paycheck (even though that comes too) but mostly just looking for what they are owed that they feel cheated out of.

If insurance companies just would pay what they are responsible for and bring people whole again from the get-go, very few people would get an attorney after an accident.

If you disagree with me here, you haven't been in an auto accident where you got screwed before. Or maybe you have and you just don't realize you were screwed.

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Well, depending on your vehicle, it may be considerably less due to the accident. In our case it was a new $45k car, 3000 miles. The Carfax shows that the value is impacted by roughly $4k due to this.

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As a buyer, I would think your DV would be reduced slowly over time. As in, if you get in an accident, repair it, and then sell/ trade in immediately your DV is going to be greatest. But if you are in an accident and drive it for three years, your DV is considerably less.

Because as a buyer, I would seriously question a vehicle as being a lemon (if that's even the right term here) that was in an accident and immediately sold. By seriously question, I mean I probably would not even buy one. Where as a carfax showing an accident from years ago and many miles ago, eh not as big of a deal to me personally and I've bought multiple cars with accidents years ago.

Your car will also diminish in value as more miles are put on it, and that is independent of the accident and the insurance company will not be responsible for that "natural" depreciation.

The insurance companies frick the consumer on dv claims.

Boosie, are you finding the your tortfeasor's insurer is using some form of the 17c formula? That formula caps dv claims at 10% of fmv. After finding 10% of fmv, they will use two modifiers to determine the amount of diminution. One modifier is based on miles and condition and the other based on the seriousness of the damage.

Ex: $100,000 car, with 3000 miles; this would be listed in the chart around the 90-95% mark; slight damage ($4000), with no structural damage or bag deployment; this would be around 10-20% on their bullshite chart.

100K fmv car; 10% is 10,000; 90% for miles leaves 9,000; 10% for the type of damage caused leaves us with a $900 total for dv.

This formula was used in a Georgia court, and the insurance companies started to run with it. Even the Georgia court later said that they didn't know if this should be used in every case, and that they had used it bc it seemed fair in that specific case.

However, this formula severely undervalues the amount truly lost. I've worked around the automobile industry, automotive body repair, and the legal industry my entire life, and I can assure you that your local dealer will lower the value of that $100,000 car closer to 30% when you attempt to trade the vehicle. Further, they'll also reduce their retail asking price by a significant amount, bc someone spending good money on a used car does not want one that has been in a previous accident.

As has been said, age, miles, condition, type of car, value of car, type of damage, etc will be considered when determining the amount of value lost due to the accident.