Latest Car Update

Mr. B spent the day getting records of work done on the car, talking to insurance value assessors, his own agent, etc. And here's how it stands so far:

Our own agent can't/won't do a thing for us. It's not her problem, it's between us and the insurance company of the lady who hit Mr. B.

The other insurance company is being firm on the settlement of $133 to declare our car 'totalled.' Although our make/model of the car has a NADA value of up to $1800 and is being sold for $900-1200, they're sticking to their original arbitrary assessment of $201 as our car's value.

Although the police record states that the other lady was at fault for pulling into a busy main road without yielding to oncoming traffic, the insurance company is insistent that Mr. B is 25 percent at fault because "accidents take two people." It's his fault that he was there, and that he let her hit him.

Our last resort is to prove that we had a rebuilt engine put in, which theoretically adds value to the car. We have that proof, but I don't see them caring.

Mr. B is also collecting data about how much this make/model of car is generally valued at - cars for sale, Kelly Blue Book, NADA. Our bank said that NADA is the standard - but it's impossible to know what the insurance is using to assess the value of our car and they aren't sharing that information. It's their own little secret. They didn't use NADA. Maybe they made up a number. I doubt they'll care how much everyone else values the car at - if they did, they would have used a standard listing from the beginning.

So that's where it stands. Their client hit us, and their concern isn't to help us get our car driveable, it's to pay out as little money as they can, and they know we have no recourse because they have lawyers and we have nobody to go to, no advocate.

What happens to someone struggling to get by with an old car if he gets hit through someone else's mistake and his car is totalled enough to be undriveable and he needs transportation to get to his job? He can't get any kind of working car to replace his for $133. What happens to people in that situation? Luckily, it's more principle for us - we'll have to pay some money because of an insured motorist's mistake, and it's an unwelcome expense for our single income family, but it won't ruin us. We'll still have use of the vehicle, although it's uglier than it used to be. But what about people living on the brink of financial ruin, what do they do when this happens to them?