Justrolledintotheshop
Sometimes I wonder why they even bother to send us these totals.
Discussion
It's like when the ambulance brings in the mangled remains of a motorcyclist. You need someone to actually say, yep that's a goner
In my case (not a motorcycle though) the ambulance crew kept doing CPR until they handed me off to the ER. My heart stopped 3 times in the ambulance, but, technically, as long as they kept trying to resuscitate me, I wasn't dead, so, less paperwork for the ambulance crew. The ER hit me with a massive dose of adrenaline, and managed to jumpstart me. Kudo's to all involved.
Ironically, they later determined that my own bodies adrenaline was responsible for my heart shutting down after the accident. Apparently I was up and walking around when the ambulance finally arrived on the scene, with large strips of flesh hanging off my rather charred body... adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
Hardcore situation and glad you made it but you aren't really the example they mean here.
When the head and the body are in two different bags, it still needs to get signed off on by someone with correct credentials to pronounce someone officially dead in the eyes of the state, who is usually not on the scene.
As a retired paramedic you are right. You either die on scene or at the hospital, no one dies in an ambulance. It’s not a paperwork thing though, it more of just a mind set thing if we have decided to load you up we are going to do the work.
Either way, those guys saved my life. I sent them a card to their "barracks", because tracking down the exact people working was damn near impossible.
Hell, the hospital told my wife and my father they didn't think I'd make it through the night. My dad apparently looked the doc right in the eye and said "Watch him, because that boy doesn't know how to quit" Still here, still ornery.
They just needed somewhere for it to go sit for a while that's not a predatory tow yard.
Is there another type of tow yard?
For the insurance companies I think it's like having to have a Dr. sign the death certificate.
"What do you mean you're totaling my car. Can't you fix it?"
Had such situation once.... A recovery vehicle shows up and the driver asks you "where want you to bring me the car?"
The last thing you want to do at such moment is going through the yellowpages for some address you have no idea what they can do for you.
If my car needs repairs i have it shipped to my regular workshop. Let's see from there how to proceed. I have no other ideas
When I towed, my first question after introducing myself to the owner of a heavily damaged car on the side of the road was “do you have full coverage insurance?” If they did, I always suggested towing it to our lot. The insurance would pay for the recovery, tow, and storage fees, and it was in their best interest to get it towed out to copart (if it was totaled) or a body shop (if it wasn’t). I’d happily tow it anywhere they wanted, but most people didn’t want to pay the $500+ bill out of pocket if they didn’t have to
I once had an accident and the wrecker showed up before the police. I waved him off, I had a guy I used for towing related things.
I just hear John Cleese in the Pet Shop sketch in my head, "THIS IS AN EX-CAR!!"
I just see John Cleese as Basil Fawlty tearing a branch off a tree, screaming: “Right! That’s it! I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing!”
Whereas I see him as the Black Knight... "It's just a scratch!" "You stupid bastard, you've got no arms or legs!"
Former insurance adjuster here. I have handled property damage only claims and injury/fatality claims. And people are, by a WIDE margin more concerned about their cars than their bodies or (in some cases) the death of a loved one.
I’ve had people send me pictures of their cars at the scene of an accident and I can tell BEYOND ANY DOUBT that it’s going to be a total loss. But I’m not allowed to make that determination. Only an authorized shop or one of our field appraisers can do that.
So, when we just have to have the vehicle towed somewhere because we can’t leave it at the scene, we pick a shop nearby. Preferably a shop we have an agreement with, but sometimes that isn’t possible. We do it because sometimes (more often than not) when we tell our insured that the vehicle is a very likely total loss (again I’m not allowed to make the determination) and they should just have it towed to the salvage yard for storage until the field appraiser can drive out and see it, they LOSE THIER SHIT on us (“This isn’t that bad.” “You aren’t here so you can’t see it’, this can be bent back into shape” or “But I lost my virginity in that car, it HAS to be repaired.”). So to keep the peace we have the tow truck drop it at a shop to sit for a few days until paperwork can clear and we can finalize the total loss negotiation with our insured (also a nightmare) so then we can have the car towed to a salvage yard like we knew all along it was going to be.
I wonder why the turnover for claims adjusters is so high?
The stuff I have heard from our adjusters makes me glad I never had to do that role. Combine that with shit insurance companies (fuck progressive in particular) that will try to skirt by the laws.
Mini rant incoming. No I don't have to accept your ACV without proof of how you came to that value, no I am not required to download your app and send you pictures, no I don't have to have my car towed to the shop of your choice for inspection, you don't agree with the shops appraisal for repair you have to send someone out to that shop, no I don't have to keep driving my car with busted tail light and hanging bumper because it's "still drivable", no i won't accept partial fault for your insured hitting my car that was stopped for a school bus with it reds on. In hindsight I should have reported them or got an attorney.
Progressive is known in the insurance industry for being the worst about that kind of stuff, too. I don’t know how they find people soulless enough to enforce their shit policies, but they do.
My advice is to 1.) Never use progressive for your insurance and 2.)If you’re ever in a collision where someone insured by Progressive hits you or your vehicle, use your own insurance and let them surrogate to Progressive. It’s not with the headache, and it won’t count against you if the other party was at fault.
Yeah, screw Progressive… truly.
It’s an Altima, that’s almost “road worthy” as is.
Insurance pay out requirements. Story - I was washed off the road in the dark by water running across the road I could not see until it washed over my hood and windshield. The car was swept into a 6' deep ditch and sank. I had it towed to a body shop "knowing" it would be totaled. The shop did the estimate, insurance then said shop would not produce a mechanical estimate as they do not do that kind of work. The insurance company then asked me where to take it to get the mechanical estimate done. I told them the local Ford dealer. I met the tow truck there and talked to the service manager and told him what's up. Told him to estimate using all new Ford parts. 3 weeks later they finally pay out on the total.
Tis but a scratch
My PDR could pop that right out. Give it a good buff and detail, it'll be good as new. 🙄
bah, that'll buff out /s
I do emergency towing and this is what ive learned; they get $200 a day from insurance for storage fees and drag their feet
Because the insurance company has a no storage fee contact with the body shops. The low ball tow company charges less than a days storage to tow it to you and usually has to pay out the tow charges to the original tow company. So it gets the car out of storage fast and it can set in your yard for free.
Its worth it just to salvage a few ounces of blinker fluid.
Because a licensed facility needs to provide the estimate for repairs, no matter how obvious.
The smart ones price out the expensive repairs until they think it's in "totalled" range, call the insurance company and ask if they want to keep going. It only pays ~$40ish when a vehicle is totaled so the less time wasted the better.
The car in the pic most likely has a bent frame, how do you even make an estimate for this? (I'm not a mechanic)
There are ways to unbend a frame, it's usually just not worth it
I've never seen a straightened unibody that wasnt still tweaked or wrong in some form or fashion. Even body-on-frames are rarely right and it's usually cheaper to just put a new frame under those.
99% of the time it'll be wrong in some way, but that 1% when it's perfect (i.e. the owner knows a good shop, has a lot of money, and got lucky with the impact), you really can't tell unless you know exactly where it happened and what to look for.
…what? I’ve straightened plenty of unibodies and body on frame wrecks. They’ll never be perfect, but they’ll be within spec. And the wheel alignment will be 100%. It not cheaper to source a new frame vs pulling the front straight after a collision 😂
Waaaat? No you milk it since their insurance is paying for storage and diagnosis.
I don’t think we’ve ever charged for storage, maybe threatened in certain circumstances. The most I’ve ever gotten for diagnosing/tear down on a total was 4 hours.
We get $129 per day storage.
The bosses son gets $129 per day storage***
Hey, that nose isn't gonna fill itself
Or buy his $500 bottles of cologne
I’ve never heard of a shop that doesn’t charge something for storage. I’d hate to see your estimates.
Probably a DRP. If they aren’t a DRP and aren’t charging storage, that’s wild to me and I’m on the insurance side.
Right? The adjusters are laughing their asses off when they see that all they’re paying is a towbill and a couple hours of labor.
Do you get to pick interesting parts before it gets sent for scrap?
A full tank of gas is still worth some time, and better take care of the cat before it gets stolen.
That is the opposite of the truth. The majority of claims that field adjusters look at are total losses at an auction or at the customer’s house.
It really depends on the insurance company. I was rear ended by someone who had USAA, they had me take it to a body shop for an estimate. The estimator didn't even pull it into the shop. When he walked out he said, "You know this is totaled, right?" And I agreed with him, but the insurance company needed him to tell them that and didn't take my word for it.
In a separate accident, I was hit by someone with GEICO, that time the estimator came to my house and then did just enough of an estimate to total the car again. It wasn't drivable the second time so I let them tow it off and didn't buy it back that time.
That’s not because “a licensed facility” needed to make the determination, it’s because USAA shoves their admin work off on their DRP shops because they’re a shit company. As you point out, even GEICO has field adjusters that can go to your house and total a car.
Geico shoves their admin work off on shops too. I haven't seen one of their adjusters for 3 years.
On the plus side, cutting their admin means they often forger where cars are and rack up storage as a result. My shop picked up $20,500 in storage on a T-boned old RAV4 a few years ago. We've got a Civic that is currently over $5000 in storage and counting. We email them every other day to ask when they are picking up the car and get no response. In a few months someone will do an audit, find they are missing a vehicle, call us, want to know why we didn't let them know, we point out the emails, and every time the answer is "Oh crap." Then were get paid and the car is picked up.
I was really impressed with GEICO, I had to pay the initial tow bill and they had a direct deposit set up within days to pay me back. I don't even think the charge had cleared the credit card yet by the time they paid me back.
USAA took over a month to even give me an offer on the car, granted, this was right at the start of the COVID lockdowns, but they seemed very disorganized.
It might just depend on who you get. My friend had to deal with Geico a couple years ago after getting in a minor wreck and they jerked him around for months.
I had the opposite experience with Geico and USAA.
In fact, in dealing with Geico, Progressive, State Farm, Allstate, and USAA - the only times I've had to make a claim were when I was with Geico and USAA.
USAA was the fastest to payout for a repair when one of my cars was sideswiped while parked at the curb at a friends house that I was visiting for a weekend. Within 2 days they had already made the initial payment to the body shop to get work started and by the following week the car was ready.
With Geico, it took them something like 6 weeks and several phone calls to even get an update on whether my car was totaled or repairable - it ended up being totaled and it still took them 3 more weeks for them to cut me a check.