Fender Bender Update
Tip It!I noted last week that my wife got in a fender bender. It was totally not her fault — someone rear-ended our Honda Odyssey when she was out and about. Anyway, we decided to pursue the claim directly through the other driver’s insurance company (Grange). Shortly after the incident, my wife went to a local body shop and got an estimate for the repair. Grange then cut a check to us for the cost of the repair, and we can (apparently) just sign it over to the body shop to cover the cost of the repair. Either that or we could do the truly frugal thing and deposit the check and charge the repair on a reward credit card… Actually, a truly frugal move would be to pocket the cash and drive around with a dented bumper. Anyway, the check arrived yesterday, so now all we need to do is schedule the repair.
Published on March 13th, 2007 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Automotive
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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March 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
When I had my similar incident, after I told the body shop it was an insurance claim, they would only accept the check from the insurance company as payment. Otherwise, it would’ve gone on a reward credit card. The body shop actually had to cut me a check of their own since part of the insurance company’s check was for rental car reimbursement.
This struck me as rather odd, and maybe not legal or correct, but I didn’t complain.
March 13th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
In our fender bender (a one-car weather-related accident), the insurance company, cut the award to the bone, according to the garage. They had to take it, since they had agreed to be a reference garage (just like the doctor has to accept whatever Blue Cross pays if he want any Blue Cross patients, no matter what his “real” bill is.) If we had been paying out of pocket, they would not have done the work for what the insurance paid.
Which makes it difficult to do the reward card maneuver, to say the least.
Longer story short, after meeting the high deductible on this (luckily) old car, we were better off just trading it in for salvage value on a new car–and avoiding a claim and the black mark that puts on your insurance. We still drive that new car, 13 years later!
March 13th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
But think about trade in value for the van if you leave the dent there (and subsequently get rust)
Car repairs are such a pain!
March 14th, 2007 at 7:58 am
No, the really frugal thing to do would deposit the money into a high yield account until you decide to get the car fixed.
March 18th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I seem to be experiencing similar karma this week.
This week my 16 year old daugher was in two minor fender-benders, and I was in one.
Monday in the school parking lot. She was backing out and the other car was coming down the driveway the “wrong way” against the arrow, so both were at least partly at fault. Jut a couple of scratches on the ‘99 Chevy, so on big deal. Probably won’t fix.
On my way home that same after noon I let my car roll up a bump the car in front of me at a pull out. We bouth got out and looked, but there was no damage so we both went on.
Then Friday she was going to wash her car and was stopped at a 4-way stop. She got rear ended and it did crumple the bumper in some, so we will probably get something fixed on that one.
March 20th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Dont you just love those reward credit cards. I once had it where a guy backed into me and then said his company would be in touch. I never heard back for days so i phoned them left a message that I wasnt going to mess about and was going through my insurance, then then called and said meet them in the car park to discuss this.. Im like.. not likely..
I went through my insurance and got my car sorted..
Who knows what could have happened to me had i gone there.