If the other guy is at fault, you should file with them. If you file it on your insurance, they have to go to the other company to get reimbursed, if they handle the claim all the way through. It's better just to go through the other person's insurance, unless they have crappy policies on doing repair work. They all are going to follow similar guide lines on how the vehicles will be repaired. But some are definitely worse than others on using lower grade parts. Then the total threshold they use should be in the same ball park, but not always.
I can tell you, if another insurance company started a claim, I did not like picking up the claim in mid process. Likely if it was someone like Progressive, the adjuster who wrote the estimate, would most likely write a estimate completely different from how I would have. So, I hated to have to pick up a claim, that some other company started and wrote the original estimate. Then what one adjuster or company will total, another adjuster or company may not. I was assigned a claim that a State Farm adjuster beat me to. He or she chose to repair the car, I would never have chosen to repair that car. I refused to get involved in the claim. By the time I was given the claim, the body shop had already started the work. The work would have gone over our total loss threshold from day one. But they where working away. I wrote a bunch of notes, in our system and washed my hands of the deal. There was a lot wrong with that whole deal. Somebody either was inexperienced or got handed some cash in a envelope to not total that car. It got a hack job for a repair job.
Then six months later, I got called to a dealer to look at a car, so naturally I went to the body shop, for that dealership, thinking I was there to write a estimate. No car, it was not there. Then about the same time my boss called to ask where I was that they were waiting on me, with their lawyer. My first thought, was this is not going to be a fun claim, yay. Turns out they were at the sales department with their lawyer. They had filed a diminished value claim. The lawyer, typical of a lawyer, tried to play bad *** with me. I kind of ignored him, just went to work looking the car over. Once I saw the car, I knew what car it was, then I looked it over and found the work that had been done was horrible. Good thing I refused to have anything to do with that one. I had them take it to a shop I knew, had it put on a lift and started taking pictures top to bottom.
It had some serious problems with the repair work. I wrote a bunch of notes in the system and then told the owner of the car and the lawyer, our company would contact them. I was not going to stir things up worse than they were. But the right side exhaust pipe was 3/4" from being butted up to the manifold, because the pipe was bent and the shop reused it. The front frame rails were not very well attached to the body of the car, not near as close to the firewall as they should have been. The car was a unibody. so the body and frame are all welded together. The shop had cut the whole front end off of the car, at the firewall and then tried to splice a new front clip on and did a horrible job. They also left a hole in the firewall about 1 1/2" in diameter right above where the exhaust had the big leak. So there was exhaust getting in the car, right below the A/C evaporator case. That was a bad deal. They had a new born baby they were carrying around in the car and had no idea about that part. I knew as soon as their lawyer knew that, someone was going to get hit with a huge law suit. I wanted my name completely disassociated with that whole deal. I figured the higher ups in the main office would decided how much of my info they would pass along to the car owner and their lawyer. Which I am pretty sure they gave them all of my pictures and all of my notes on the claim from day one. I wrote a long novel on that car in the green screen.
It obviously turned into a big deal, because, I had to go back to the body shop that did that work months later, to say the body shop manager was not happy with me would be a very great understatement.
So before that mess, I hated to take over a claim someone else started, but after that huge mess. I absolutely refused to touch a claim started by someone else, unless it was minor damage and I looked over their estimate and decided it looked good.
Keep all doctor bills and any records naturally. That stuff is for the office adjusters, I never handled any of that stuff, but the more records you keep the better. The insurance company will get it out of the storage yard and take somewhere. If the estimate gets written in the storage yard and is determined to be a total loss, it will go to the yard where the insurance companies send vehicles to store and then sell at auction. If you send it to a shop before the adjuster shows up, then the adjuster will go to that shop to write a estimate, then it may still get totaled.
On the lost wages, again, I never dealt with that type of stuff. I would just document some way, showing what days she was off work, then something that shows what she makes weekly or hourly, or however she gets paid. They may want to contact her employer, not sure, never dealt with that end of things, like I said. But the more you can document the better. If you make the adjusters job easier, things will likely go easier, better for you.
Depending on the damage, what the vehicle is and the insurance company and the adjuster as to whether it will be repaired or not and then how it gets repaired if, it does not total.
In the past year, I have been told that most of the field adjusters have been laid off and they office adjusters are working from home. If have had to deal with companies that have sent their employees home to work from home because of Covid. You have probably gotten some pretty crappy service, having to wait on hold for a lot longer than usual. So I would guess if they are still working from home, you can expect to sit on hold for a long time. I have not worked for a insurance company in over twelve years. I did do some work for a independent adjuster company, which does contract work for most any insurance company, whoever needs help getting estimates claims written. So truly, I don't know how each company is handling things right now. I figured the independent adjusting companies would be flooded with work, so the insurance companies would not be possibly endangering their employees, but my adjuster buddy who also worked for a independent adjusting company, told me early last year, there was no work at all, so he changed professions.
I can tell you, if another insurance company started a claim, I did not like picking up the claim in mid process. Likely if it was someone like Progressive, the adjuster who wrote the estimate, would most likely write a estimate completely different from how I would have. So, I hated to have to pick up a claim, that some other company started and wrote the original estimate. Then what one adjuster or company will total, another adjuster or company may not. I was assigned a claim that a State Farm adjuster beat me to. He or she chose to repair the car, I would never have chosen to repair that car. I refused to get involved in the claim. By the time I was given the claim, the body shop had already started the work. The work would have gone over our total loss threshold from day one. But they where working away. I wrote a bunch of notes, in our system and washed my hands of the deal. There was a lot wrong with that whole deal. Somebody either was inexperienced or got handed some cash in a envelope to not total that car. It got a hack job for a repair job.
Then six months later, I got called to a dealer to look at a car, so naturally I went to the body shop, for that dealership, thinking I was there to write a estimate. No car, it was not there. Then about the same time my boss called to ask where I was that they were waiting on me, with their lawyer. My first thought, was this is not going to be a fun claim, yay. Turns out they were at the sales department with their lawyer. They had filed a diminished value claim. The lawyer, typical of a lawyer, tried to play bad *** with me. I kind of ignored him, just went to work looking the car over. Once I saw the car, I knew what car it was, then I looked it over and found the work that had been done was horrible. Good thing I refused to have anything to do with that one. I had them take it to a shop I knew, had it put on a lift and started taking pictures top to bottom.
It had some serious problems with the repair work. I wrote a bunch of notes in the system and then told the owner of the car and the lawyer, our company would contact them. I was not going to stir things up worse than they were. But the right side exhaust pipe was 3/4" from being butted up to the manifold, because the pipe was bent and the shop reused it. The front frame rails were not very well attached to the body of the car, not near as close to the firewall as they should have been. The car was a unibody. so the body and frame are all welded together. The shop had cut the whole front end off of the car, at the firewall and then tried to splice a new front clip on and did a horrible job. They also left a hole in the firewall about 1 1/2" in diameter right above where the exhaust had the big leak. So there was exhaust getting in the car, right below the A/C evaporator case. That was a bad deal. They had a new born baby they were carrying around in the car and had no idea about that part. I knew as soon as their lawyer knew that, someone was going to get hit with a huge law suit. I wanted my name completely disassociated with that whole deal. I figured the higher ups in the main office would decided how much of my info they would pass along to the car owner and their lawyer. Which I am pretty sure they gave them all of my pictures and all of my notes on the claim from day one. I wrote a long novel on that car in the green screen.
It obviously turned into a big deal, because, I had to go back to the body shop that did that work months later, to say the body shop manager was not happy with me would be a very great understatement.
So before that mess, I hated to take over a claim someone else started, but after that huge mess. I absolutely refused to touch a claim started by someone else, unless it was minor damage and I looked over their estimate and decided it looked good.
Keep all doctor bills and any records naturally. That stuff is for the office adjusters, I never handled any of that stuff, but the more records you keep the better. The insurance company will get it out of the storage yard and take somewhere. If the estimate gets written in the storage yard and is determined to be a total loss, it will go to the yard where the insurance companies send vehicles to store and then sell at auction. If you send it to a shop before the adjuster shows up, then the adjuster will go to that shop to write a estimate, then it may still get totaled.
On the lost wages, again, I never dealt with that type of stuff. I would just document some way, showing what days she was off work, then something that shows what she makes weekly or hourly, or however she gets paid. They may want to contact her employer, not sure, never dealt with that end of things, like I said. But the more you can document the better. If you make the adjusters job easier, things will likely go easier, better for you.
Depending on the damage, what the vehicle is and the insurance company and the adjuster as to whether it will be repaired or not and then how it gets repaired if, it does not total.
In the past year, I have been told that most of the field adjusters have been laid off and they office adjusters are working from home. If have had to deal with companies that have sent their employees home to work from home because of Covid. You have probably gotten some pretty crappy service, having to wait on hold for a lot longer than usual. So I would guess if they are still working from home, you can expect to sit on hold for a long time. I have not worked for a insurance company in over twelve years. I did do some work for a independent adjuster company, which does contract work for most any insurance company, whoever needs help getting estimates claims written. So truly, I don't know how each company is handling things right now. I figured the independent adjusting companies would be flooded with work, so the insurance companies would not be possibly endangering their employees, but my adjuster buddy who also worked for a independent adjusting company, told me early last year, there was no work at all, so he changed professions.
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