I got into an accident last October(the night of the Rockets' season opener oddly enough) where someone hit my car while it was parked. Obviously it was 100% their fault, and the total repair cost ended up being about $2000. So now, I want to file a Diminished Value claim. The guy I just talked to at Allstate said that they will first inspect my vehicle to make sure all the repairs were made correctly...then I would have to personally hire an appraiser to estimate my car's value. Is that right?? I don't understand why I have to pay out of pocket for something that wasn't my fault. Shouldn't the other party be paying for the appraisal? Heck, if I drop $200 for an appraisal and only get $100 back on the claim, then really it's a waste of time and money. Anyone know more about Diminished Value claims? codell?
Codell is your man for this. I went through a situation very similar, and hired Codell to do my appraisal. He did an awesome job and I would highly reccomend him to anyone that needs this done. As for the diminished value process, is your car fairly new? Mine was less than a year old, so I felt pretty confident that I would get a nice return from this. I think I ended up getting around $2,000 total just for the diminished value part of it. I don't think you would get much benefit from it if you have an older car, but Codell could answer that better than I could. Good luck!
I started using it for my fantasy baseball teams a couple years ago. Don't think I've lost a league since.
Yeah, I remember reading a thread a while ago about diminished value..I think it was yours, and Codell helped you out on that. I remember him saying that you'd most likely get about 1/4 of the cost of damages to the car, which comes out to $500 for me. My car's fairly new. It's a 2000 Camry with only about 30,000 miles on it. Also, it's never been in an accident before this one. How much did it cost to do the appraisal? I know you had a lot of damage to your car, so claiming Diminished Value makes sense. But with a less damaged car ($2K), I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Ichiro, If you would like, email me at stilwell_adahouston@sbcglobal.net and Id be happy to answer your questions. In general though, unless you can get Allstate to pay for the report (which based on my experience with them, is unlikely), then any money you would net off my findings would pretty much be wiped out by what you would pay me. In reality, you shouldn't lose to much, given it was only $2,000 in damage. Just be savvy when you are selling it and youll be able to mitage most of your loss. BTW, which shop repaired your vehicle?
