My Totaled Car

I knew it would be totaled when I was hit, but now it's official.

I received official paperwork in the mail on Friday explaining as much, but I must say I was genuinely surprised at how much they thought my car was worth. It's true that it's a one-owner car since we bought it new in June of 1994, and it's also true that it's "relatively" low miles at 92 thousand, but they were settling at just shy of $2,000. You also have to consider the fact that the figure is after they subtracted my $500 deductible too. I wouldn't have thought it was worth much more than say, $1,200 on today's market.

I've been playing phone tag with the insurance lady from time to time, and I finally got hold of her last night. She was very happy to finally get to speak with me after all the phone messages and such. We talked about the facts and figures of course, and I told her I wanted to see about buying the car back. Evidently she already started that ball rolling way back when it happened, based on the fact that the car was drivable after the accident (see what I mean about good service?) She said that the state of Washington has a rule that a car must be submitted to a "silent auction" prior to a sale of this kind. As I said, she had already done most of this paperwork, and she checked to see what it would cost me to buy it back. After a little digging on her computer, she came back with:

"Well, it looks like if you want to retain ownership it will cost you... Let's see... $80."
"$80 to buy it back?" I asked, not quite believing the numbers.
"That's what it says," she replied.
"I'm in."

So the bottom line is that I will still own my car and will get a check for almost $1,900. Not too bad of an outcome I'd say. She was going to send it right out to me today. Another bonus is the fact that I won't have comprehensive or collision coverage on it any more, and that will cost me less money too. After all, you can't really insure a totaled car for full coverage now, can you?

I've had nothing but good to say about the Hartford insurance company this whole time, from the speed with which they handled everything, to the personal service they offered when they sent the guy out to do a local valuation of my car while I was at work one day.

Now I can start the process of fixing a few things on it. It's in dire need of a tune up and the struts are about worn out (crappy ride over bumps). I want it to run and ride well, but obviously I didn't want to throw my money away if I wasn't keeping it.