An update regarding the insurance process and progress on the car...
As I alluded to earlier, a couple of planning sessions with "my" body & Paint guy (Chris @ Classic Auto Painting, Mt. Juliet TN) devised a plan involving some late nights and weekends, some sweat equity from Julie and I, a specific celestial alignment, and some luck. If everything went perfectly we could be in and out in a couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, things did not go perfectly...
The Insurance company's initial photo estimate came in at $1500.00 to R&R and paint the door. Fortunately, the insurance company (Progressive) immediately recognized that this was a custom/specialty vehicle and the initial estimate was not gonna cut it.
I learned that an insurance company cannot tell you what shop repairs your car. They may recommend shops they have relationships with, but they cannot refuse a shop or demand that the car be taken to a specific shop for repairs.
I informed Progressive that I had a small window of time to get the car repaired at my preferred shop. And, that I would be taking the car to the shop in Nashville, TN immediately. I was not waiting for them. I had plenty of photo evidence, literally thousands of pics of the car if there were any questions about the condition of the vehicle before their client hit me. Progressive said they would arrange to have someone go look at the car at the shop in TN.
Friday we put the TA on a trailer and headed towards Firebird Central's shop near Lexington KY to pick up a new door before they closed for the weekend @ 2 PM on Saturday afternoon. Our poor R/T Durango was not happy pulling the TA up and down the WV mountains. But it looked cool...
Untitled by
Tom Sherer, on Flickr
And, it dutifully got us to Firebird Central at 1:30 Saturday. FB Central had the door waiting for me right up front in the retail shop. (A really nice facility, I might add. Thanks, FB Central!) We were at Chris' place by dinner time Saturday.
On Sunday we got the car into the shop and got the door opened to assess the damage inside. Pretty much everything in there was crushed and/or bent. No surprise. By Sunday night, most of those parts were on their way to Classic Auto Painting.
Monday morning the insurance guy was at the shop first thing. He looked over the car, took some pics, and explained the next step was to get an assessed value on the car as a custom or specialty vehicle. Once the value was set, another guy would visit to finalize the labor and itemize parts.
At this point, I was starting to worry a little. I was happy they recognized this was not 'just' a 1981 Trans-Am, but would they come in way low? Would they pay for the extra labor involved in reproducing the custom bodywork on the car?
I learned that the value assessment is critical because that determines how much the insurance company will pay before trying to 'total' a car. It varies from state to state, but I was told that in TN, on a car 10 years or older, insurance will pay up to 100% of the assessed value to repair a vehicle. In some states that number can be 51% of the assessed value.
But, Progressive did say Chris could start tearing things down(Just don't start any actual repairs until the value was assessed and they started the final estimate process. So, work progressed on breaking down and prepping the car in order to hit the ground running when the assessment came in.
Waiting for the insurance company to value the car, while Classic Auto took stock of all the damage was a terrible couple of days. Damage was further spread than we had hoped. In addition to a dip in the B-pillar @ the top of the door area, the striker area was pulled and cracked, the front fender was bent, and there was a wobble in the roof.
Untitled by
Tom Sherer, on Flickr
Untitled by
Tom Sherer, on Flickr
Untitled by
Tom Sherer, on Flickr
The assessment came back Wednesday...
I was happy to hear that the $ value was right where I estimated it should be. I had the car valued at $25000 on my policy, and that's the number Progressive came back with. This was good news. Knowing the estimate was coming in around 12K, I could finally not worry about the insurance company trying to lowball the car's value or suggest the car be totaled. (Which I had already informed them would not be acceptable.) All we needed now was the second guy to come out to complete a 'Supplement' to the initial $1500 estimate. But, that supplement needed to be a big one.
I'll cut to the chase here...The second guy came out. He agreed to the labor estimate, then worked with the shop and myself to come up with a full itemized parts list. I suspect that getting the car categorized as a 'Custom' or 'Specialty' vehicle might've helped this process. This 'regular' insurance company's parts computers do not necessarily have all the required parts info for classic cars. And, the adjusters do not necessarily have experience with classic/custom cars. Because of all of the restoration records I had, I was able to contribute information, justification, and pricing on a bunch of stuff that might've otherwise been missed. Ultimately, they ended up with a dollar amount on this 'supplement' that was in line with all of the estimates. More good news I suppose.
Although the $ came in where it needed to be, none of the other stars aligned. The insurance process had things behind already. And things did not improve once Classic Auto Painting started to dig in. The proverbial 'Can of Worms' has been opened.
When we left the car at the end of week one work was progressing...
Untitled by
Tom Sherer, on Flickr
Needless to say...Our plan to get 'er done in a couple of weeks has been dashed.
That's it for now. Thanks again for the kind words and encouragement. It does help...I've spent a lot of time in a foul mood over the past few weeks. Trying to look at the bright side: We planned on getting some area's touched up in a couple of seasons anyway. This has just moved that timeline forward a couple of years.
Take care.
-Tom
