Insurance is a 20-page promise to make you whole financially if certain events occur that pose danger to your financial well-being. The insurance company has to honor the car insurance claims you make in case of an accident if you had the proper coverage for the accident that happened to you, however there are three main reasons why it wouldn’t cover your claim:
- You didn’t have a proper coverage (If you had a more comprehensive coverage then your claim would be covered)
- The type of claim you submitted is actually never covered by any existing policy on the market. (Doesn’t happen often)
- The insurance company messed up your claim (Mistake on their part)
Here are advice and tips to make sure your car insurance claims will get paid in full:
First of all, realize that you’re dealing with insurance adjusters. They are people hired and authorized by the insurance agency to investigate the claim you file and determine how much money you’re going to receive, if any. Adjusters determine whether you have the proper coverage for your claim, and they also work hard to determine how much money is reasonable for the repair or replacement of your car.
Usually your claim adjuster will be knowledgeable of coverages and of controlling the costs, however they could get some more training on the following aspects:
- Explaining step-by-step to the customers how they’ve arrived at the settlement, which is crucial if the client and the adjuster don’t seem eye to eye on the outcome.
- Agreeing on the price of auto repair. Sometimes the adjuster just mails the client a check and leaves him in an uneasy situation of looking for a body shop that’ll do the work for that price.
- Stay in contact more. Sometimes it becomes a hassle to get in contact with the insurance adviser as they’re hardly reachable and the client usually doesn’t know the supervisor’s phone number.
And here are tips on how to overcome all of these problems:
- Know your information: get the claim number, direct # of the claim adjuster and her supervisor when adjuster first contacts you.
- Let the adjuster and the body shop negotiate on the payment and accept it only when they reached an agreement to avoid hassles.
- Call the supervisor if your adjuster doesn’t do the job well.
- Ask your car insurance agent for help on any kind of problem that you’re having, especially if you feel the settlement offer is too low. A good agent will negotiate to improve an unfair settlement offer.
If you were involved in a car accident and it was your fault, you can only make a claim to have your car repaired or replaced if you had collision coverage. When make make a claim with your insurance company, an insurance adjuster gets assigned to you and may have you get one or two estimates from body shops or even expect the car herself and write her own estimate.
Keep in mind that you have the right to pick the body shop of your choice for the repair of your vehicle, so you can insist on that. However it’s wise to avoid shops that overcharge as it will keep your premiums lower. Next, if a busy adjuster just writes and mails you a check in the mail and your body shop of choice does not honor it you can call the adjuster and work out a new repair price with your shop. Never accept the payment before the body shop agrees to repair your car for the money your car insurance company wants to give you.
If the insurer doesn’t want to pay for new parts for your car, then that’s okay. If you had a car in great condition but owned it for 6 years and some parts had wear-and-tear on them you can pay the difference between the new parts and old parts out of your own pocket because the auto insurance company only has to recover your car to the state it has been in previous to the accident. In case you want to get the cash instead of having your car repaired, most car insurance companies can do that, you’ll just have to ask. To get the most cash go to a used car dealer and have him tell you how much a car like yours cost before the accident and after, then subtract the after from the before cost and you’ll get how much cash you should be paid by the insurance company after you file the car insurance claim.
When filing car insurance claims it’s very important to realize the Tiers insurance companies use to place their clients in. For example, a driver with no at-fault accidents of age 25 living in a town in Arkansas might be placed in Tier 1, being the safest. Someone with three at fault accidents of age 19 living in urban New York City and driving a red Corvette is in placed in Tier 7. If that same guy from Arkansas gets in an accident that’s his fault he’ll be placed in Tier 3 and consequently his insurance premiums will rise as well.
So when filing a minor car insurance claim it’s important to understand that you might end up paying more in premium payments over three years (that’s how long at-fault accidents last on your record) than if you didn’t file a claim. That’s what this system of Tiers does to drivers.
So before you file that car insurance claim with your insurance company ask your agent how much more you’ll end up paying in your insurance premiums over the next few years.