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By Dennis Volz
A client called me yesterday with an interesting dilemma. He said that recently,
when his car was parked on the street, it was hit by another car whose driver
was gracious enough to stop, confess and make contact.
Nevertheless, he was concerned because on the same side of the car there was
some damage from a prior accident. He wanted to see if he could get that
fixed at the same time. He also wanted to make sure the paint
matched the rest of the car. So here's the advice I offered to Steve.
The other car's insurance company is only going to pay for the damage that
was a direct result of the accident caused by the second event -- Nothing more,
nothing less.
His best bet is to make a deal with the body shop OUTSIDE of the parameters
of the insurance company settlement. Here's why.
Anytime you repair a car there are some fixed expenses that are there regardless
of the size of the job. The car has floor time, rack time, parts to order,
paint booth time, drying time, set up the paint sprayer time, set up the sander
time, on and on and on. The body shop will appropriately include most of that
in the estimate for the insurance portion of the repair. Then the body shop
might go ahead and fix your "other fender" for less because they
have to go through all that set up stuff anyway.
Talk to your estimator at the shop and see if you can't make a better deal.
I bet you can.
GOOD LUCK!
Dennis Volz is an insurance agent for a large national insurance company
and the author of The
San Diego Insurance Blog. He has served the East County area since
1978. Dennis and his team have built their business around their mission
statement: We enable our policyholders to manage the
risks of everyday life, recover from the unexpected and to realize their
dreams. Contact Dennis and his team at 619-670-1000 (24
hours a day), email at Dennis@DennisVolzInsurance.com or
on the web at www.DennisVolzInsurance.com .
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