Effects of making insurance claim in Michigan

This weekend someone rear-ended our van at a stale stoplight. I have no idea what the guy was doing to where he just accelerated into us. In any event, apparently part of the curse of Michigan law is that if there is a collision you take it to your own insurance company and his insurance has nothing to do with it. Guy rear-ends us, it costs us $$$ he walks away scot-free.

I stopped by two body shops today. One quoted $3200 another $2800. However, this assumes that the floor pan isn’t messed up, which they said they wouldn’t know until they got into it. We have Geico, full coverage (never got around to taking it off, I suppose) and a $1k deductible. I’m weighing the options about making a claim or not and told my wife I’d need to run it by Grassroots first.

On to the questions:

1. There is an accident report that says it was not our fault. The highway patrol officer oddly believed the other driver that someone else bumped him into us, though there’s zero physical indication or witnesses, so anyway the report also says while he did hit us it’s not his fault. Are my rates going to go up after filing a claim like this in “no-fault” Michigan— that is, even with it *actually* not my fault?

2. Ideally it would be a total loss so I could pocket the most amount of money. It’s a 2008 Chrysler T&C LX 3.3 fully loaded power everything, DVD and all that jazz, little body rust, 191k miles. KBB says in good shape private party we’d get $3800-4600 (this is trying to remember off the top of my head). It’s not necessarily good shape but the adjuster won’t be test driving it. How do they determine value? Private party? Dealership? Replacement?

3. What’s the deal with buying your car back if it is declared a total loss? I could still drive it and likely even fix it myself. 

4. Is Michigan very strict about putting salvage title cars back on the road?

5. If it’s not a total loss can I just pocket the money intended for repairing the damage?

6. What would you all do? Make a claim of it, taking the risk that it’s only going to net me $1-2,000 after deductible? Or would rate increases over time on that and the other two cars negate that benefit? I’ll just say that once I realized we were all okay I was excited, I was thinking it was payday. But then, “Michigan no-fault” :(

I don’t have any helpful advice but as a fellow Michigan resident you have my sympathy.

It seems odd that he isn't responsible.  Here, if there is a chain reaction collision caused by the front car standing on the brakes for no particular reason, everyone is at fault except the front vehicle.

Usually th way this works is that your insurance company takes care of everything and then they subrogate to the other persons insurance. 

P3PPY said:

This weekend someone rear-ended our van at a stale stoplight. I have no idea what the guy was doing to where he just accelerated into us. In any event, apparently part of the curse of Michigan law is that if there is a collision you take it to your own insurance company and his insurance has nothing to do with it. Guy rear-ends us, it costs us $$$ he walks away scot-free.

I stopped by two body shops today. One quoted $3200 another $2800. However, this assumes that the floor pan isn’t messed up, which they said they wouldn’t know until they got into it. We have Geico, full coverage (never got around to taking it off, I suppose) and a $1k deductible. I’m weighing the options about making a claim or not and told my wife I’d need to run it by Grassroots first.

 

On to the questions:

1. There is an accident report that says it was not our fault. The highway patrol officer oddly believed the other driver that someone else bumped him into us, though there’s zero physical indication or witnesses, so anyway the report also says while he did hit us it’s not his fault. Are my rates going to go up after filing a claim like this in “no-fault” Michigan— that is, even with it *actually* not my fault?

2. Ideally it would be a total loss so I could pocket the most amount of money. It’s a 2008 Chrysler T&C LX 3.3 fully loaded power everything, DVD and all that jazz, little body rust, 191k miles. KBB says in good shape private party we’d get $3800-4600 (this is trying to remember off the top of my head). It’s not necessarily good shape but the adjuster won’t be test driving it. How do they determine value? Private party? Dealership? Replacement?

3. What’s the deal with buying your car back if it is declared a total loss? I could still drive it and likely even fix it myself. 

4. Is Michigan very strict about putting salvage title cars back on the road?

5. If it’s not a total loss can I just pocket the money intended for repairing the damage?

6. What would you all do? Make a claim of it, taking the risk that it’s only going to net me $1-2,000 after deductible? Or would rate increases over time on that and the other two cars negate that benefit? I’ll just say that once I realized we were all okay I was excited, I was thinking it was payday. But then, “Michigan no-fault” :(

1.  You'd have to ask your agent (who would check with underwriting), but since Michigan is a true no-fault state, it shouldn't.  Haven't dealt with MI in a while, but if memory serves you should be able to recover your deductible.

2.  Most companies use a third party vendor called CCC.  They look at local market values.  A few companies will use NADA and such, but regardless of what they use they should provide you with a copy of their valuation report so that you can check for accuracy.

3.  They will offer you the value of the car (without taxes and registration) less what the salvage value is.  Salvage value is easy for them to determine by looking at historical sales of similar vehicles in salvage auctions.

4.  Check with the DOT on that one, each state is different.

5.  Yes

6.  I'd file the claim, but that's up to you.

To gauge an idea of what insurance value is, look it up on kbb.com as a 'private party' vehicle. Seems lately you have to go through the motions of 'trade-in value' to get to a place where you can actually click on 'private party'.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Usually th way this works is that your insurance company takes care of everything and then they subrogate to the other persons insurance. 

Yeah, your insurance will go after their insurance. It “shouldn’t” affect your rates. 

joey48442 said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Usually th way this works is that your insurance company takes care of everything and then they subrogate to the other persons insurance. 

Yeah, your insurance will go after their insurance. It “shouldn’t” affect your rates. 

I had this happen to me too in MI and its basically like calling 2 insurance companies instead of one. Probably one of my biggest complaints about the state aside from the terrible road quality. 

We (Illinois regigstration/insurance) got rear ended once in Michigan. Hatch on Volvo wagon wouldn't open. I remember my parents rates did not go up, but it was a gigantic PITA getting everything settled. 

Okay it looks like I’ll end up going thru insurance. I may or may not try one final litmus test first (to see if there’s a good chance it’s totaled) and see if my brother in law’s hatch when installed on my van will close or not. If not then it’s a guaranteed win for me. :)

Does anyone have input on putting salvage cars back on the roads here?

In reply to P3PPY :

As long as you fix it, it will still be a clear title. Only if the insurance “buys it” then sells it at auction will it end up as a salvage title.

For vehicle valuation, find as many comps as you can.  I did this when my A4 was totalled and the insurance company tried to low-ball me. I have a spreadsheet if you want but I had the factory window sticker with option prices and found all options for comparison cars. I was able to come up with a depreciation factor and apply it to the sticker value of my car to get the market value not book value.  PM me and I can email it to you. 

In reply to PMRacing :

Nice! This one came with loads of options, so that will be better for me then. 

In reply to P3PPY :

I like the Michigan no fault law and the required coverage for personal injury. It does generate a glut of personal injury lawyers but is a trade off as everyone is incentivized to have their own insurance. Everything is a trade off.

So the last time I had to deal with this stuff the best thing to do is to make the claim. While they churn along you can also generate your comparibles to justify your costs. 

As guy who was drinking ran into the side of me. He basically didn't turn right from the right  turn lane. Smelled of alcohol. Cop wrote it up as neither of our faults but sun glare related.  

Chrysler still makes your body van. In the Dodge Caravan form. So repair costs may not be prohibtive. Keeping and fixing vs taking the totalled cost is purely up to you. I would think you could use the money to get something else. $2000 isn't much but it is something of a down payment to shop with. Or a good fix up fund to make one of your two other cars as good as new. 

Rates may increase but that is more company related. You should shop around now before submitting a claim. To get a feel for how rates may change. 

In my various claims I just reported them to my insurance company, some through the body shop.   All were handled painlessly.

I'm sure your agent can answer your questions.

Ranger50 said:

In reply to P3PPY :

As long as you fix it, it will still be a clear title. Only if the insurance “buys it” then sells it at auction will it end up as a salvage title.

Nope, not correct...unless either state law allows for it (very few do), or the insurance company gets lazy and doesn't follow state guidelines.

Klayfish said:

Ranger50 said:

In reply to P3PPY :

As long as you fix it, it will still be a clear title. Only if the insurance “buys it” then sells it at auction will it end up as a salvage title.

Nope, not correct...unless either state law allows for it (very few do), or the insurance company gets lazy and doesn't follow state guidelines.

That’s provided you haven’t hit the totaled out amount, for which the insurance company “buys it back”.

In reply to P3PPY :

Sent a couple nights ago.  Did ya get it?

In reply to PMRacing :

Yes I did, thanks! I have not gotten a chance to check it out yet. 

I was just looking through the spreadsheet. I will probably end up repurposing it for quotes from body shop places at this point; it looks like they're nowhere near total loss. 

I just got off the phone with the claims adjuster. I'd sent in photos and they did it that way; he never saw it in person. He quoted me $1,900, minus my $1,000 deductible. I stopped him and told him that I'd been to two body shops that were both $1,000+ higher. He said he couldn't make any adjustments to his estimate based on what a body shop estimated. He said they would send out more money once I got it in a shop and the shop said it would cost them more. I told him I wasn't wanting to play that game and he asked if I was just trying to not get it fixed and pocket the money. (Would that even matter anyway?) and also kept saying "body shops are just quoting high to make money "

I requested that they send out an adjuster on site instead.

My blood pressure is still up. That was a fairly hostile phone conversation and I feel like I just wrote out a jr high "he said she said" argument :/

In my (limited) experience, body shops will quote differently than insurance adjusters, and they will quote differently if they know it's an insurance claim. Get your agent involved if you have to. That was all that saved our home burglary claim from going to hell. And the fact that I had a spreadsheet listing everything in the house, with pictures and serial numbers and values, and receipts for most of it. Adjuster totally thought I was trying to rip them off, my agent had to vouch for us. It was not a fun week. And the adjuster similarly did not actually look at anything but the police report pictures.

So what do you do when you use Geico and there's not actually an agent??

I was waiting to see if this was the Hummer that hit (jalopnik) David Tracy's Jeep. That H2 guy deserves all the bad karma 

P3PPY said:

So what do you do when you use Geico and there's not actually an agent??

The best thing you can do is have an inventory of your property. A video walk-through of your house is good. Agents, for the big companies, can't do anything for your claims unless it's small enough they handle it under their draft authority, which is typically a low number.

In reply to z31maniac :

Oh that makes good sense. I was thinking in terms of right now in my position with the car. I wouldn't say I have any kind of advocate