So about two months ago, I was in an accident where a lady pulled out in front of me. Destroyed my bumper, grill, fender, transmission mount, steering, and front passenger side knuckle on the axle. There was no damage to the frame.

All repairs are finished, and now I am trying to work on getting them to pay up on the diminished value. He just came back with this response:


"i received the information back for the Diminished Value on you 2008 Jeep Wrangler. We can pay $300 for the Diminished Value. This is based on the fact that there was minimal actual body damage to the vehicle, most of the damage was to the aftermarket suspension components and we covered for those parts to be replaced. Your vehicle also had 69,933 miles on it at the time of the accident, which is considered a little high mileage for this age vehicle."

This sounds extremely low to me... Am I right? I was expecting it to be closer to around $1500 or so. The provider is Nationwide, and I'm in NC. Should it be so little just because the damaged parts were aftermarket for the most part?

 

go get some quotes from dealerships on if you were to trade it in,, on what the difference would be without it being in that accident compared to now with it being in an accident. Tell a dealership it was in an accident and watch how much the trade in value would go down!
I was able to get my brother almost 5000 for his mustang when he got re ended. A vehicle in an accident can tremedously effect the value, it doesnt matter what parts were damaged after market or not, when it shows up on carfax your going to get less for it, so dimished value should help make up the difference.

 

Yeah that's what I thought. Definitely feel like this guy is trying to screw me on this.

 

good luck with it, still doesnt mean you may get any more, but it cant hurt to try

 

Ok. Since your parts were aftermarket that we're damaged, they do not add value to the vehicle. In the insurance companies eyes, you have been made whole by the replacement of the damaged parts. You DOV claim would not be worth as much as a stock vehicle bc the dealerships don't see that kind of value out of aftermarket parts. Usually the insurance co will take 3 DOV quotes from dealerships and take the average them to come up with the offer. Understand that insurance companies do not want to pay DOV claims on older vehicles, only on vehicles the same year of when the loss occurred. I hate to say it but you won't get much more. I hate how it works like that. I am a claims adjuster.

 

Thanks for the info. Even still, I feel like 300 is a very low offer. I'm sure if I took it to a dealer and told them it was in an accident, they would see just that, not whether or not the actual parts damaged were aftermarket. Just the fact it was in an accident.

 

That is IF it shows up on carfax, I wrecked a car and the airbag deployed, however the carfax report had it listed as a minor accident with no airbags being deployed, and yes it was repaired at a dealership not some shop that cuts corners, so with this error I got more out of my trade

 

$300 is a joke.

If any of us on this forum were looking to buy a Jeep, and yours was sitting next to an exact equal Jeep where the only difference was the accident history... and the price difference was $300? Who would ever buy yours over the clean one?

No one.

You deserve more.

 

Here is his reply today after we spoke on the phone, and he said he would go back to the table on it

"We have reviewed the issues that you and I discussed earlier and we can still offer $300 for the diminished value on your vehicle. As we discussed earlier, there was minimal body damage to your vehicle and most the damage was for the suspension components that we replaced with new parts. Your claim had a high dollar amount, but it was mainly because of the parts prices for your aftermarket parts. Diminished Value looks mainly at the amount of structural or body damage involved. If you can provide any documentation or details to substantiate the amount that you are requested, then we can take another look at it."

 

Here's what I would do.... show the insurance agent the difference as indicated on the KBB Web site. I ran your 2008 JKU value selling it private party, with and without the damage -- assuming you sustained $3K worth of damage.


If they don't want to pay the difference, take them to small claims court. The KBB report should be enough to get your money back.

$21,103 - excellent
$19,803 - good (sustained accident with $3K damage)
$1,300