Insurance Advice

I have a 91 Corvette with 54,000 original miles that is a garage queen and my autocross car.  The car is clean and in good shape for an old C4 and still looks really sharp.  My son had a flat tire on his car one morning so I let him drive the Corvette to work.  My son parked the car in the parking lot at work.  A co-worker with a Silverado parked next to the Corvette.  Later in the day the co-worker pulled out of his parking spot at a sharp angle and hit the front of the Corvette.  The impact caused cracking to either the gelcoat or the actual fiberglass at the front of the wheel arch as well as some scrapes on the hood.  The front bumper has some gouges and scuffed paint as well.  On C4's there is another small panel between bumper and front of hood, this panel has a larger gap now on the impact side. The damage is not that noticeable from 10 feet away.  The co-worker owned up to the accident and told his insurance that the accident was his fault.

I think I am ready to move on from the Corvette, I have owned it for 5 years or so and put maybe 2,000 miles on it.  If I can end up with $10,000 between insurance money and selling car I would be satisfied.  I took the car into a local body shop, I was told that it is going to be difficult to get repaired since most of the larger shops don't do cars that old, so I would be rolling the dice with a smaller shop.  The shop I took the car to, did give me a courtesy estimate even though they would not do the work.  They estimated $4500 for repair.  I am fairly certain I could fairly easily get $5000 to $5500 for the way the car sits now.  I was thinking of taking the insurance money, then selling the car as-is.  

So my question is, can the insurance company be negotiated with?  Should I tell them I want $10,000 for the car and give them the keys if they agree?  Can I negotiate any extra if I agree to not use a rental car?  Any advice or previous experiences would be appreciated.  Sorry for the long post.

Insurance only owes for the damage caused. They will not buy the car from you. They are not in the car business.

Rental cars are billed separately from the repair. One doesn't really have anything to do with the other, so it isn't a good negotiating tool.

Corvettes rank as one of my least favorite cars to get claims on. The fiberglass will crack in places you can't see, and it always winds up being an expensive PITA to fix them. 

In reply to ddavidv :

Thanks for the response, getting it repaired correctly seems like it would be difficult and I am ready move on.  I will probably just take a cash settlement.  

Take the money to fix it and sell it?

It seems like there are a lot of guys wanting a Corvette project.

I would see what the insurance adjuster offers, too, might luck out and get an initial offer that is enough.  I was also going to suggest hitting up local enthusiast groups to find a shop that might be more familiar working with Corvettes, although I just checked the one I knew of, and in the last couple of years it's been taken over by one of the chain shops.

In reply to eastsideTim :

We have the same problem in my town, my go to shop was bought out by a chain.  The other known good shops are only doing newer stuff.  Yes, I would prefer to take the settlement money and sell car as is.  It is very low miles, 6 speed, has the good axle ratio and still looks very good except if you look closely at front corner. I think the lower price point selling as-is will make it an easier sell.

On the rare occasion I was cursed with a claim on one of these, we are fortunate to have a couple Corvette-only shops around here. If the owner goes there, my life is easier, because they know what to look for and can help me write a proper damage estimate. Going to a regular body shop I just assume the final cost will be 2x what I figured up front.

My least favorite cars for claims, in no particular order:  Corvettes, Range Rovers, Jeep Wranglers and anything made in Europe after about 2010.

In reply to ddavidv :

Yup, the Wrangler always topped my list too.