The Boy was in a minor car accident last Sunday. An oncoming truck came towards him (left of center), and he swerved right to avoid being hit, went off the road and scraped up the side of the car on a sign post. He wasn’t hurt, kept going to meet up with his sister, and gave me a ring late Sunday night with details.
After returning home on Monday, i took a look at the damage. Right front quarter panel, passenger door, and right rear quarter panel were badly crunched, and the front head light would need replacing. Given that he’s a 19 year old boy (highest insurance bracket), and i’ve already got a very high insurance deductible for my fleet of four shitmobiles, i figured i’d just pay to get it repaired – and not file an insurance claim.
The next day, The Boy took the car into a local body shop*, and got a repair estimate of $2100. That’s even using recycled parts! OK. Decided to file the claim, paying only the $500 deductible. When i told the insurance rep that i’d already gotten an estimate, she informed me that the shop we’d chosen wasn’t on the “pre-approved” list. We could either take the car to an “approved” shop for an estimate, or have one of their adjusters come out to write the estimate for the damage. They’d then cut a check for that amount, minus the $500 deductible, and i would be free to get the work done wherever i wanted to…
Adjuster came out Friday while i was at work. The Boy called me late in the afternoon with an update. He was headed out, saw the paperwork stuck to his car, and opened it up to see what the estimate was. A check for $2300 fell out. Looking over the estimate, this is what the insurance adjuster would be paying AFTER my deductible.
So, we’ll get the car fixed this week at the body shop that gave us the $2100 estimate. i pocket $200 – which will likely just offset the increase in my insurance rates as a result of filing the claim. This stuff is a big ol’ mystery to me… The Boy offered to turn this into more cash, by wrecking some of my other cars, i’m pretty sure that’s a bad plan.
Beats me, man…
_____
* He’d had work done on his prior car, aka “Shamu”. The place was good, but about one step up from a chop shop. Easy on the wallet. i do believe, however, that duct tape was involved…
Trailer Park Refugee 
Insurance is way beyond me ………. I think they always win though
So glad I’m out of that game. I always carried high deductibles on all my shitmobiles. Except for the one brand new car I bought. A story for another time.
Sometimes it pays not to question authority.
I had the same thing happen to me, but it was with my SON!He needed to have his appendix removed and the insurance company sent me $2800 for the surgeon. The surgeon in his wisdom, only charged me $2500 and I put $300 in my left front pocket. Then I went to my son who was a real pain back in those days (and still is) and tried to talk him into having an arm removed! You should have heard him yelling “NO” from the hospital room cleset!
Mel
A-OK with the +$200 but I’m glad that nobody was hurt in the accident. It sounds like it could have gone horribly wrong. I hate cars. One of the main reasons I stayed in New York City as long as I did was because I didn’t have to drive. Thankfully, neither of my daughters will ever drive, so I won’t have to stress about insurance premiums. Right?
By the way in a comment over at my place, you made reference the Big Red Machine and Paul Brown. So you’re a fellow Buckeye! And then I checked your blog roll and I see you’ve posted a link to bobzyeruncle. How well do you know Bob? He and I have been friends for a long, long time. Mrs. Wife and I are going to London to visit L and Bob in September.
DP – yep. Life Insurance is my favorite. The only way you can “win” is to die before the actuarial tables say you will… if i don’t quit my crazy ways, i might do alright there…
silverstar – by owning all junkers, i can keep the rates down a bit…. but it’s still annoying as hell. been in enough wrecks in my life to keep more than just the bare minimum coverage, though.
annie – i think the insurance company is still ahead of me… and yes, if it’s their policy to do business this way, then so be it!
mel – Wow! Wonder what you could get for his kidney and half a liver (it regenerates – that’s an easy one to give up!)
unbearable banishment – of course. they’ll never want to drive. they’re never going to be interested in boys, not want to have anything to do with backpacking around the world, and would never consider doing anything risky. right.
ub2 – oh, my… my Trailer Park is on the east side of Cincy. how well do i know bob? ummm… let’s see…. can i plead the fifth? 🙂 we met in high school… i was from that “other” school, just across the border into the cornfields of clermont county! Family still lives there… Did you work at Knapp’s, perchance?
The kid should change his name to Midas…
k-ching…….win win all round and at least he wasn’t hurt……
do you think he could come over and wreck my car for me? i need an extra $200 or so…
Of course it does. Much like the guy here in SA who has claimed life insurance on his wife. Three times. Because each time he was able to prove she was alive. And then dead.
Come to think of it, Jesus could’ve made a killing.
so it’s 19 (son) plus 4 (cars) minus 1 (accident)… um… how did we come up with $500 again?
just call me barbie when it somes to imsurance. so glad the boy is ok xx
alex – over here in the states “Midas” is the name of an automotive muffler shop. might be appropriate!
manuel – agreed! been very lucky this summer – The Girl was hit by another driver, and her car was a total loss, and now The Boy dodged a big ol’ truck coming right for him. It’s just metal! No complaints! and hey, they pay me $200 to fix the car! Life is good!
gnu – Um… Shhhh…. he’s trying to make some cash for a vacation. He might just take you up on that!
dolce – Jeebus Actuarial Kee-RIST! Why didn’t he? Could have paid for some bandaids for all those lepers and stuff…
nm – you forgot to carry the bandana and round off to the nearest sk8board….
He sounds like a real investment to me. Just think what could happen if he wrecked an expensive car! Trip to Paris, baybee…. 🙂
awalkabout – not sure i want to encourage this line of “work”. my motto for him is “keep him alive til he’s 25″… risk mitigation is necessary…