I wouldn't worry about what ends up being paid out for your car. As long as it gets fixed correctly and to your satisfaction. Let Amica and Hollis work out the payments. Your car will be fixed appropriately (hopefully) by Hollis and they can work out the money matters with Amica and you shouldn't be involved in that bit of the claim.

Now, your rental. If you have rental insurance on your policy, Amica will be bound by your policy limits for rental. There is nothing you or thay can do about that. Most offer something like $30/day for up to 30 days. About $900 in coverage for rental. If you go beyond that because your car is not repaired within this time period, it will then switch over to the other guy's insurance to pay for the remaining time that you would need that rental.

As far as taking the cash equivalent to the rental cost because you have another car you can use, some companies will allow that, some won't. I'd probably not mention that you have another car and just ask for the cash so you can get a rental on our own.

You'll also have to be careful with collecing any overage balance for rental from the other Ins carrier. They'll use the arguement that "Well, we could have used shop X and had your car fixed 2 weeks sooner, therefore we don't owe the last 14 days rental". Things can get tricky here as Ins companies are not allowed to mandate a repair facility of their choice, but they still use the argument above to mitigate their losses. However, in your situation, with repairs somewhere in the $25k range and the car taking 2 months to be fixed, and you having another car to drive, it seems like the argument for an extra few weeks of rental through the other guy's Ins would be trivial.

I hope the other guy's policy through Commerce has enough limits to cover your damages, otherwise Amica won't be able to subrogate for the full amount and will go directly after the other guy for recovery. But thats really not your problem.

M

 

Cool, I thought so.

But if the State is silent on LKQ, isn't it then an open matter- to be decided by a court (or negotiated)?

Yes, I agree the insurer will have an opening gambit- or a preference- to pay the bare minimum. But the underlying issue is 'you are liable for wrecking my car and it cost me $200 a day to replace the car you wrecked, so you are liable for that cost too'.

In your example above, I'd file a small claims suit against the driver (not insurer) for the $3500 difference, and let a judge (who has likely been screwed by his insurance company) determine if the rental of the same exact car that was wrecked should be part of the at-fault drivers liability.

Unless there is a law that limits liability, 'insurance laws' as to what is required to be in an insurance policy, should not apply.

My read...

A

 

If there is no state DOI regulation in the books about the rental being LKQ, then the matter would still be up for grabs to be decided by a court to set a precedent. So yes, you're right about that. However, at this point, it'd be hard to imagine any state that hasn't already dealt with the matter and have something to go off of one way or another.

Yes, if the Ins Co decides not to pay out the full amount that you had paid for the rental, you could go back after the responsible party directly in a civil suit. However if you should win that case, the other guy could then go back and sue his own Ins Co for "bad faith" as thay had failed to protect him the total amount of damages that he had caused you, providing those loses were inside of his policy limits.

The only limit on liability is the policy limit that the policyholder has purchased. An Ins Co will not pay more than that to a 3rd party. Any excess damages over that limit would have to be settled in a civil lawsuit with the responsible party.

If the policyholder brings a "bad Faith" suit against their own Ins Co, ther is no limit to what can be paid out should be policyholder get a favorable decision by the judge or jury.

For that reason, it would be tough to imagine an Inc Co not covering the total cost of your rental just to cover themselves from the possibility of their own insured bringing a bad faith suit.

At some point it becomes a business decision as to what gets paid out just to protect thenselves from any further possible exposures.

I will often pay out more than a claim is actually worth in the intrest of being sure no further suit will exist.

 

Thanks, that was helpful to here that confirmed and maybe helpful to others.

A

 

Never heard of the dimished valve option regarding an insurnace claim. Thanks for recommedation if this would ever become present.

DP

 

I work in the insurance industry and come across diminished value claims all the time. If you are in Georgia, the best company to use is Diminished Value of Georgia. They are nice and friendly, and get straight to the point, as well as give you a free estimate on what kind of diminished value you should be getting back for your particular car and situation.

Here is a link to their site, it has a lot of good information on it.

http://www.diminishedvalueofgeorgia.com

 

This !!! but then it gets legally messy... your suing him for crashing into you and hes suing you for battery and attempted murder lol ...

but this is a very informative thread so I am definitely giving positive rep for this 1