|
Write them a letter to this effect:
The insured (Mr. Whoever) hit and damaged my car on the night of __/__/__. A police report found him to be under the influence.
My car has been seriously damaged, and is currently inoperable. I am now looking at a loss of income as a result of the disablement of my vehicle.
I was neither in the market to sell or buy a new vehicle, and my vehicle was in good running condition.
Given that the following 5? vehicles in my local market are priced at an average of $_____, and all of them need at least $____ in repairs to be brought to the same condition as the vehicle the insured damaged, I believe the fair market value to be $_______.
Thus far, your efforts to low-ball me and cite non-existent laws about fair market value have been disrespectful and ridiculous. Also given that it's been over a month since your client damaged and disabled my vehicle while driving under the influence, I have suffered considerable financial and personal consequences because of your client's actions.
You have 3 days to respond to this certified letter with an appropriate counter-offer that is within one standard deviation of the mean cost of replacement for my vehicle, or I will be forced to enlist the services of an attorney. I will win the lawsuit, and you will be paying my lawyer's fees in addition to the fair market value of $_____ and compensation for the ____ days loss of use of my vehicle and the $____ I've had to spend on alternate transportation.
I look forward to your response, and hope that we can reach a satisfactory agreement to compensate me for the actions of the insured,
-Your name-
I think that might get their attention. Notice how I repeated the "your client damaged my vehicle" over and over and pointed out the obvious of "I'm going to leave you hurting if we go to court," and the statement (your counter-offer) of what they need to pay you (might want to go a little high), and the use of "cost of replacement" instead of "fair market value of the vehicle". Cost of replacement is exactly what the fair market value of the vehicle is, despite what kind of depreciation figures they think apply.
Your car was probably perfectly road-worthy, and is now unusable. You should be hassling the heck out of these clowns incessantly until they give you what you deserve. If they don't, the case is a slam-dunk. Don't hesitate to tell them that a judge will laugh them out of court for their ridiculous offers. Their moron driver drunk drove into your car and they won't pay you a fair price for it. Then you can sue for "pain and suffering" and "loss of income" and a bunch of other stuff the attorney knows more about than I do.
Do find out what the actual average price for a replacement car is - look on craigslist and look at used car dealerships. Also get estimates for what it would cost to repair the other cars. Let them worry about the standard-deviation from the mean, but tell them what the mean is. Here, most volvos sell for 1-3 thousand, and they all would benefit from 1-3 thousand in work. That puts you in the 4-6 thousand ballpark for replacement, not including the other losses.
They're being jerks, fight back! Get aggressive. Imagine that they walked up to your car with baseball bats and broke out all the windows, lenses, and mirrors then offered you $800 for damages. Get mad.
Good luck - and feel free (any member of the site) to use my example letter word-for-word.
|
