Good. This is what your buddy has to do. They will always low ball you to begin with. They are not in the business of giving out money. He has to find as many cars similar to the car in question for sale. He can also complain that this is a special car and it’s his baby, etc.
He must be specific in*his arguments and be able to back everything up with current market data. Get lots of for sale ads. They have to give him enough to replace the car with a car in similar condition (not including mods). Being a low mile car with (I assume) no rust works in his favor.
I did this 2 months ago and was able to negotiate a final payout that was almost double the original offer. In my case the original offer was a huge lowball.
Im not 100% positive. Depending on the buy back price, Im sure some coin could be made parting it out. I had a few people pm already on here about buying it back. I’ll update when he makes his decision and possibly make a FS thread.
Car insurance companies don’t pay out on a claim according to the current market value of a vehicle. They don’t even take that into consideration. They also DO NOT pay anything extra because of sentimental value.
Wow… uhm… yes they do, it is common, the car should be insured for replacement value. All you have to do is show a number of cars with in a reasonable radius with the same options as your car. They do pay market value. M3’s are notorious for this, Black book value (which is what insurance companies use) is usually not much above a standard 330, but in reality they usually $6k-8k above a similar year 330. You come back and and show them market value and 99% of the time you get what you ask for, as long as you don’t have a shitty insurance company.
I work for the insurance company and Market Value and Replacement Cost are two very different things. Market value is the selling price at the time of the loss and Replacement cost is the cost to replace the property with a new version of the property. The way that they determine what they pay out on an automotive claim is by finding its ACV (Actual Cash Value) which is the replacement cost minus depreciation. Hence, nothing to do with the current market value of a vehicle.
Thats alright, It doesnt have to make sense because thats how its going to work regardless of what the general public believes. An the insurance companies really aren’t out there to make money, trust me. After paying off claims, salaries, advertising, and all of their other expenses at the end of the year, they really only about a 4 percent profit (If they had a good year). An then 3% of that is distributed to the employees in the form of Profit Sharing checks while the remaining 1% is invested into the stock market. So really? How much is the insurnace companies really profiting? Majority of the American Public believe that everyone is out to get their money. They’ve just become acustom to thinking that way and dont want to see the truth.
I also work in insurance claims. FoxyHonda is dead on. Replacement cost is in fact replacing an vehicle with the new version. Market value is what that particular model with similar miles and condition is selling for at the time of loss.
If I total my 2006 STI, my insurance company is not going to give me $30-35K to replace it with a 2009/2010. Replacement cost is not what you insure a car for. You insurance your car for any repairs and in the event it is a TL, they will give you fair market value. In my case, depending on condition, miles etc would most likely be around $20K (just an example)
I understand where CursedCavy’s logic is coming from, but the definition of replacement cost is not replacing a vehicle with the same vehicle with similar miles and condition. Especially if that vehicle is rare or hard to come by, it may be irreplaceable.