Okay, I have an insurance question. If an insurance company declares a car a total loss, do they pay you the value of the car or what you have left owing on the car? How does this work, anyone know?
Do they go by the Kelly Blue Book Value or what? The value of the car is more than what we owe, but they called and wanted to know our payoff for the car. Kind of weird, but this is the first time we have dealt with this.
You are all wrong. They pay off the value of the car only. Should not have told them the payoff...or told them about 5k more than the value of the car. Now they are going to try and lowball you.
throughly recapped here before..... http://4042.appcomm.net/4042forums/showthread.php?t=10491&highlight=nationwide Sorry you have to go through it.
Well, my hubby said they called (his car) and asked him for the bank info on the loan we have on the car, I told him he should have not done this, he argues differently. We looked up the value of the car and what we owe and the value of it is 3000.00 more than what we owe on it because we did 3 years instead of 5.
It depends...usually the value of the car, unless you've purchased GAP insurance (which I have) since I know as soon as you drive the car off the lot, it looses a lot of value.
They may try to low ball you but expect they would have to offer the value. Some people don't have loans so they would have to use something to determine value. If they come back with a figure matching you're loan ... present them with the blue book value.
They do need to know how much you owe on it, so they can pay off the lien and then give you the excess, if any. But they will get the exact figure from the bank or finance company, not from you. The value of the car has nothing to do with what you owe - it could be more, less, or at a certain moment in time exactly the same. They should be using blue book, but that is not an exact measure. Tell them all the wonderful things about the car that make it worth more than blue book, and they will tell you what makes it worth less, and you can negotiate what you think is a fair settlement. If you want to keep the car, they will deduct salvage value from your payment. If you want the full value, you will have to give them the car.
When I totaled my SUV last year I owed 5,200 some odd dollars on it. They ASK for the pay off cause they NOW own the car - they have to get the title so they can junk it. When the insurance co pays you off, they are essentially buying your vehicle. They take the book value, - in my case with the mileage, it was worth 12,700 according to the book. They paid off my vehicle - to the finance co directly who worked out sending them title and cut me a check for the difference - so I had a check for 7,340.00 in my hand to put in the bank to put down on another car or do whatever I wanted with it. Pain and suffering and medical bills are all paid seperately.
When you purchase insurance on a car that has an outstanding loan you have to give your insurance co. the information of your lender, so chances are they already had the information and your husband was just confirming what was in their system. Remember, when you purchased the car you had to give your lender all of the insurance information and they in turn or the dealership in turn had to contact your insurance co. to verify you have auto ins. and to add the vehicle to your policy. My past experience has been that they only pay the fair value on the car at the time of the accident, not the loan payoff, gap insurance does exactly that, fill in the gap between what your payoff is and what the insurance company's reimburshment is. Good luck with everything.
Some great answers here already, but just wanted to add, most insurance companies will use the NADA value as gold standard. They will then depreciate down from there if you have any prior unrelated damage, worn tires and so on. Good luck!
