Car Update

I posted about Mr. B's little accident here; he was hit while driving to work.

The other person's insurance company has finally settled on what they're going to pay to reimburse us for the damage the lady did to our car, which they deemed a total loss: $138. That doesn't even cover the money we paid to hammer the body off the wheel and replace the tires where the metal rubbing on them wore grooves in them.

Here's how it apparently works, according to them:

The car is old. So old that it isn't even listed in Blue Book. They did enough research to be able to tell Mr. B that replacement value, what this particular car is selling for on lots, is about $900. But they placed an arbitrary value for our car of $230-something. Then, one of their agents accidentally marked down that Mr. B was "25 percent at fault." He wasn't, the officer who wrote up the report stated that the lady was totally at fault for failing to yield. But they docked 25 percent off the $230 because of that, leaving $201. And then, since Mr. B plans to continue driving the car instead of junking it, they docked off $68 "for parts." I guess that's what they'd get if we gave the car to them and they sold it for parts.

Mr. B is going to try to take care of this. His sister is visiting from across the country, but instead of getting to visit with her, he'll be spending his one day off this week making phone calls, getting his car-guy to detail the work we've had on the car, and getting other documentation to try and recoup what he had to pay for the damage done to his car by another motorist whose insurance company doesn't want to pay for her mistake.