Stubborn insurance company refuses to settle car accident property damage claim
Another Pennsylvania diminished value claim we’re working on also shows the difficulty of settling diminution of value claims. It involves a 2 year old Acura MDX with 23,000 miles that was in a moderate accident. No passengers were hurt, but the car had $14,000 in repair costs. The owner went to the dealer to find out about a trade in, and learned that the accident cost her $10,000.00 in auto value damage. She had the dealer put the auto property loss estimate in writing, and she used that to negotiate herself but only got a lowball offer for about ten percent of her loss.
She continued to negotiate, but the insurance company refused to offer any more money. She wanted to trade in her car, but didn’t want to absorb all of the car accident property loss herself. Ultimately she traded in her car, got an updated estimate of the loss, which was exactly the same as the first one, and came to us for help. We contacted the insurance company, provided them with the damage estimates and Pennsylvania value claims law for diminished value claims, and demanded the full lost value of $10,000.00. The insurance company sent back a form for us to complete and return and told us when they received the completed form they’d send a check for 10% of the loss! The next step is to call the adjuster and see if she read our letters and the law and see if we can resolve this but you can see the problem going after these claims yourself. If there’s no flexibility, we’re going to court.