How Your Property Damage Claim Works in a Car Accident

How Your Property Damage Claim Works in a Car Accident

If you are involved in an automobile accident while in your own vehicle, you essentially have two claims. First, you have a personal injury claim.

Second, you have a property damage claim. This page is to help you deal with property damage. For detailed information about your personal injury claim, click here instead.

The part that caused the accident is legally obligated to pay you for the expense incurred as a result of the crash. This means that in addition to compensating you for your injuries, they have to pay to have your car repaired or replaced and to pay for you to have a rental car for a reasonable period of time while your car is repaired.

In almost every case, the insurance company for the other driver will settle the property damage portion of your claim soon after the crash. The property damage claim can be settled before you are finished treating for your injuries and usually well before you are even ready to make a claim for your injuries.

You Don’t Need an Attorney to Resolve Your Property Damage Claim

In most circumstances, you can get your car repaired or replaced, and get your rental car paid for without the assistance of an attorney. If you have collision coverage through your own insurance policy, then it is super easy since you are dealing with your own company. Even if you don’t have collision coverage, however, you can deal with the adverse insurance company and they will pay for your rental and repair when their insured is at fault.

Insurance adjusters may have preferred body shops that will work closely with the adjuster and have your car repaired. You may choose to use one of these shops, but under no circumstances are you obligated to use the shop suggested by the insurance company. If your car is drivable, you might want to get estimates from several different body shops before making a decision. Obviously, if your car is not drivable, getting multiple estimates is a bit more challenging.

The at-fault driver’s insurance company will assign an adjuster to work with you in getting your property damage claim and rental claim resolved. You should make every effort to work with the adjuster to get the property damage claim resolved. You really, almost always, are not better off going to court t resolve the property damage portion of your claim. It will likely cost you thousands of dollars to do so. So, unless the adjuster is being extremely unreasonable, then you don’t want to get into that fight.

You do not want to give the adjuster a recorded statement. The adjuster may request that you give a recorded statement, but they cannot require you to do so.

What the Insurance Will Pay For

Under Maryland law, the insurance company is required to put you back to where you were before the crash. This doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. What it means is that economically, you will be in no worse position than before the crash. The insurance company will generally pay the cost to repair your vehicle. In addition, you may recover some costs for loss of value as a result of the crash. If your vehicle is not repairable, or if the cost to repair is close to or exceeds the value of your vehicle, the insurance company may opt to pay you the value of the vehicle as it was before the crash. The insurance company, not you, get to decide whether the vehicle will be totaled.

If the vehicle is going to be repaired, you have the right to choose who does the repairs. The insurance company is obligated to pay for the repairs and you are entitled to new parts.

Once your vehicle is repaired, or once it is declared a total loss, your right to recover for a rental car will be up. If your vehicle is totaled, you’ll likely be able to get another two or three days of rental coverage, but you want to get a replacement as quickly as possible so that you will not have to pay out of pocket for rental expenses.

It is not unusual for us to see clients who have relatively new vehicles and get in a crash and the insurance doesn’t pay the full outstanding amount on their loan. This is the risk that you take when you have financed a vehicle and your loan is for the full amount of the vehicle. Some people purchase “gap insurance” which covers the difference between the value of the vehicle and the outstanding loan.

The reason that you may have a loan for more than the vehicle value is that vehicles often depreciate rapidly. Chances are that if you financed the full purchase price of your vehicle, your vehicle is worth less than you owe on it almost immediately. If your car is financed and it is totaled, you are still obligated to pay the balance due on your loan regardless of the fact that you no longer have a car.
If the car has a lien on it, any insurance proceeds will go to pay off the lien first. So, you might not receive any money for the vehicle as a result of your claim.

When negotiating your property damage claim, make sure to thoroughly review the appraisal prepared by the insurance company. Make sure that your appraisal accounts for any options and extras that your car had. For example, if your car had power seats or a sunroof, make sure that is reflected in the appraisal. Those types of extras can add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the value of the vehicle.

If you are not happy with the property damage resolution proposed by the insurance company, you have a couple of options.

First, you can file a lawsuit to recover the cost of the car. There are reasons that this may not be a good option for you – particularly if you have been injured in the crash. If that is the case, you definitely want to talk to a car accident attorney before you go down this road.

Secondly – you can accept the total loss and then buy back the car from the insurance company for salvage value. You can then decide to get it repaired, or perhaps sell the parts, it’s up to you.