Insurance and Money Question

[latoilette]

Some kid T-boned my 95 lexus es300

I called his insurance, one of their people came out, gave me a report that it will cost 3700 dollars to fix my car.

now..the question is..
if i were to take my car to 3 lexus dealerships and get outrageously high estimates..like 7000-8000.

Will insurance company give me 7000 or is 3700 written on a stone?

if you can speak from first hand experience, I would really appreciate it.

[chrisdavis]

We had a similar situation. Our car was totaled and the amount offered was written in stone unless we refused and opted to sue. What we should have done was call our insurance and have them handle the repairs and let them go after the other insurance company to recoup the cost(we learned this after it was all said and done). I am not sure how estimates work. Call your agent and talk to them.

[Jaimecbr900]

We had a similar situation. Our car was totaled and the amount offered was written in stone unless we refused and opted to sue. What we should have done was call our insurance and have them handle the repairs and let them go after the other insurance company to recoup the cost(we learned this after it was all said and done). I am not sure how estimates work. Call your agent and talk to them.

Good advice, but that only works IF you have "uninsured motorist" coverage on your present insurance.

More than likely the monetary difference is too great and the insurance co will pickup pretty quickly on what you're trying to do. I'd get a couple of independent estimates, real ones, and see how close or far you are from the estimate given by their adjuster. The adjuster usually will be a little on the low ball side of things, but I doubt they'll buy $3-4k low ball.

[Eli]

Hey Hamin,

When my civic was wrecked to shits on the front end, I estimates from places higher than what my adjuster said and pretty much you get what the adjuster says, its a bullshit market, i hate insurance companies.

[Dragonfly5338]

hamin - take it to lexas and get an estimate. what insurance companies do is they make their estimate with used lexas parts from other totalled cars. my civic had an estimate of 10k in damage but they claimed like 4k because they wanted to use civic parts off a rear ended civic. refuse to put used parts on your car - it's bullshit anyways. i did once and my headlights leaked, hood didn't fit right, etc.

[latoilette]

cool. Got it. Monday, I will take my car to a few lexus dealerships and get some estimates.