scifone

so here is my dilemma. i was at my sisters basketball game at her high school. well im usually not lazy and park in the back by my self but this night i slipped. anyways i parked in the front row and went into the game. i didnt notice anything until the next morning but someone had backed into the rear passenger side quarter panel. the dent is above the side marker light. i dont know what actions i should take to get this taken care of. i have full coverage and a $500 deductable. i have heard of people getting away without paying the deductable by having the shop somehow covering the price and maybe racking up the estimate? im not sure on any of this. anybody have any info? im extremely upset about this. the dent is right above the bumper line and the paint is cracked. any suggestions or advice on this would be greatly appreciated. sorry so long. thanks.

robby

Razzak

Heh. Insurance fraud isn't cool. That's just one more reason for my company to raise their rates

Edrummr

iTrader: (1)

Robby,

One thing to consider doing is taking the car to your insurance's inspector and have that inspector cut you a check if the total damage is determined to be well above $500... which it will be. Make sure the inspector includes everything in the assessment including blending, etc. You have the car looked at by a shop you trust that can match paint well. You work with them to see what you may be able to do without - specifically the blending of adjacent panels. [this is contingent on the shops ability to match your existing NBM] You also may be able to find cheap replacement parts yourself and provide those to your shop as well (to avoid paying retail). The insurance company pays for what they believe it will cost to get the car fixed - you have the car fixed more "efficiently" and keep your deductable in the bank as compensation for managing and contracting the repair . I wouldn't consider this fraud since it doesn't cost the insurance company any more than they were already going to pay + the car gets fixed. MHO.

Joker

That is an easy way to get this done for cheap, save some money, and many have done it, but its still insurance fraud and if you get caught, you will be proscecuted hard, and then good luck getting insurance for any car ever again.

The insurance co. is liable to pay for the actual cost of fixing the car less the deductible, not what it should have cost them or was estimated for at another shop even if you have it repaired by a different shop. I'm all up for saving bucks and using the insurance co. to get done what needs to be done, but they can check this and will horsefuck you if they find out they paid more than what the actual repair cost were and you didn't share this with them and pocketed the cash in any other way. Be careful cause ins. co. are watching this stuff closely!

I personally know someone who cannot get insured by anyone because he screwed his ins. co. out of a couple of grand, and they caught on to this, did an audit, compared it against other repair shops, the same type of damage etc.. and proscecuted him for insurance fraud and theft. He plea bargained his way out of going to jail and paid some fines. The only mods he does now is tie his shoes a different way to walk down to the bus stop.

scifone

oh wow i didnt realize that was fraud... maybe i should just fork over the 500 bucks. what if i was to get the damage estimated at a more expensive place... like a dealership or something, and pay the deductable then take it somewhere cheaper and save money that way? would this even work? thanks for the advice guys i really appreciate it.

robby

Joker

I did just that when I hydrolocked my motor, had it estimated by the dealer, had it done at another shop who did it cheaper and a better job (same motor wa installed and the work was al the same but the cost by the second shop was cheaper and I trusted them big time over the dealer who ran up the cost overall). Used the difference on LT's and TD's and applied the rest towards the deductible. Had the second shop rewrite the cost to reflect the same amount as the dealership because I knew them personally.

Still, its fraud and is a criminal offense. All I'm saying here is be careful cause they can find out of they really want to, they do audits all the time on repairs, and they look for shops being switched with the estimate by one and the actual work done by another. You can get away with it, but you do run the risk of getting caught as well. Good luck!

ZR2877

You could try this to. Get a estimate to see what the cost will be before you contact the insurance agency. If it's only gonna be like $650-$700 I would just foot the whole bill out of pocket. Reason being is you deductible is $500 so you are already out that so it's only a couple hundred more to take care of it and you won't have to make a claim with the Ins company. They might jack the rate up on you so you will pay for it in the long run. Once you make to many claims they will cancel you. Just a thought.

1999 SS #4526

What your body man turns into the Insurance company is the way business is done. Maybe you should find the right body man, all this talk of fraud and criminal prosecution seems pretty scary over a $500 deductable.

flyinbird

I work for a well known insurance company and deal with the claims, we get people all the time that get their checks and state that they would like to do the work themselves and save money and we have never had a problem with this. What i would suggest for you to do is to get three-four estimates from body shops that you wouldnt mind going to and hold on to the two lowest ones and show the insurance company the two higher ones, then once you get your check for the higher amount simply use it unless it is made out to you and the shop, then at that point just simply call the insurance company and tell them that you need the check reissued to another body shop because you decided not to use that one "this company never changes the amount just reissues it" Even if you tell the insurance company you are doing the work you have the option to submit to them the amount of hours you worked and they pay you for it. If the insurance company doesnt give you the amount that your higher shops asked for you can file whats called a supplement, "what this does is that it gets a new adjuster assigned to your claim that has to review the first adjusters work from the insurance company and he also looks at your estimates" the first time round they almost always give you crap because the insurance adjusters know how much your supposed to get and they get a percent of whatever they didnt pay out, thats what the supplement is for - to dispute the amount given the first time and usually the second time they give you the rest of what your estimates were for but if not all of it then just file another supplement, you can do this as many times as you want. sorry for the rambling hope this helps

haha man i need to go back to english class to relearn about run on sentences and punctuation