Ensurants Foibles

Okay, so my accident is on the 15th and on the 25th they assigned someone to the case. The liabililty was established on the 19th. The agent on my case left a vm on the 26th telling me we needed to release the truck so he can assess the damage. Okay, I want him to assess the damage. So Tina takes a long lunch drives down to the Tow place. They are used to seeing insurance 'games' and hand her a list of the laws around insurance and tell her that WE are responsible for the towing and storage ($100.00 towing $40.00 a day storage). Tina and I formulate a plan to have it towed to our house to stop the daily $ding! .

Then I find out that the 'release' needed will allow the insurance company to tow my truck wherever they want and they want to do that because THEY are liable for the towing and storage fee's at this point. Further, without the $40.00 a day they can take thier damn sweet time about issuing me a check.


you get that?.... The agent implied that he could not do the assessment without us releasing the truck into his possession. When in fact he can assess the damage at anytime. This is just a loss of leverage.


Now I had THOUGHT my wife had gone down to the storage yard and granted the agent access to our vehicle. I had called the agent and left a message that she was heading down there and he would be able to inspect the vehicle. The agent arranged for his tow truck to come down 80 miles to tow my truck away. The tow truck had to turn around and go back. The agent was pissed off.

He calls me up telling me that Farmers Insurance will no longer be paying the storage and towing fees on my truck. Which is now nearing $1000.00.

Lawyer time... I called and got a free consultation found out some very interesting things. Turns out they need to send some official notification before they can remove thier liablity. That notification is only good for a certain date onward. Still, having admitted liability they can still be held to re-imburse any towing and storage depending on the 'why'.
I also got a bunch of advise on looking at the assessment of Fair Market value and things to look for. With all this knowledge in hand the next agent in line called me.

To date I have had many heated exchanges over the length of time involved, the flagrant lies, the strong arm tactics and the lack of notification of my rights required by law.

Anyways, I finally got a settlement for $2714.00 and they went out the paperwork to sign my truck over to them. When that DHL letter showed up the paperwork shows. 2174.00....


Umkay... back into the Breech!!!