Question about auto insurance
 

Last night my son got into a car accident, and while thankfully no one was hurt, I am fairly certain his car is going to be totaled. He is at fault, but he did have collision insurance, and an adjuster is supposed to contact him tomorrow. We know he's going to lowball him, but we're trying to figure out what a reasonable settlement for the car should be.

His car is was a 2010 Kia Forte Koup (they spelled it with a "K" because it's kool) EX, and I looked it up on nada.com, and they give an "average trade in" value of $6,725, a "clean trade in" value of $7,500, and a "clean retail" value of $9850. Nowhere does it say what a "omg I totaled my car what should the insurance company give me" value.

Also, when someone else is at fault you can get the sales tax value from the other driver's insurance company, but is it reasonable to expect it from your own when you're at fault?

I don't have much experience with wrecking cars so any input would be appreciated.

The problem is that nobody knows. What "I" know is that son at fault=he is getting hosed. For a long time.

I would look at bluebook, edmunds and every site you can to look up the value. Be honest when the websites ask you the car condition. When they offer you a settlement, in most cases you have the right to accept or counter offer. If you counteroffer, thats when you need your ammo. Which insurance are you with?

state farm goes off of nada value

kind of surprised it wasn't shared fault. Technically both cars were trying to beat the red light while it was yellow.

Go to auto trader and see what similar cars are going for in your region so when he tires to low ball you, you have that information. http://www.autotrader.com/

Which value? Trade in? Retail?

He was turning left so he loses. End of story.

Did that and checked Craigslist as well, I can't find another one for less than $10k.

I wouldn't be so worried about getting low-balled just yet. Often times, it costs more for them to have to haggle over a few hundred bucks than it does to simply pay up. They will base it off the retail price of the car because they owe the price to replace it.

They're also going to offer you the opportunity to purchase the vehicle back from them at the salvage price. Depending on the amount and type of damage, this can be a great deal for you. If it's driveable, you can probably sell it for more than the salvage value. I had my grandmother buy hers back for $400, and she sold it to a college kid for $2,000 who was thrilled to find a perfectly working car for that price even though the back passenger door was smashed up.


I'm actually going to take my wife's car in for an estimate today because some chick backed into her.

It's not drivable

Just needs a little duct tape here and there.

A ten cent washer and a couple turns of the screwdriver should fix that up.

Yeah I don't think that's going to buff out.

Pffft...

My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.