Collision on Insured Car: how to Deal with Partially Repair?

If you do not owe money on the car, you can just get a check for the repairs. No work is needed and no, its not fraud to take the check and spend it on whatever. The check would be for the repairs at actual cash value (depreciated value) minus deductible.

To get the full amount of the repair usually requires having the repairs done. Its in your policy, but this might not be that big of a difference. It is still less the deductible.

If you owe money on the car, its in your contract that you will get the repairs done, so you have to do it. In this case, the check will be a 2 party check until the repairs are completed, then they will swap it out for one to the body shop (or they pay the shop direct).

The savings of not repairing 2 of 4 parts is probably negligible. Since you are in CA, the bulk of the cost is getting the paint done. For the most part, it doesn't matter if they paint a small area or a larger area, the cost of the paint booth is enormous. My point being you won't save as much as you think.

Now, what you can usually do is find a place that will do the repairs for much less than what the insurance company is paying for. If you don't know of a place, ask a couple of taxi drivers in the area. Turns out, they usually are paying someone to do body work on the taxi.

My only other advice is that if you can't pay a $1000 deductible, then lower the deductible and pay a little more in premium.

Dan

Source: http://www.insurance-forums.net/forum/auto-insurance-forum/collision-insured-car-how-deal-partially-repair-t51785.html

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