Car accident - body shop & insurance woes

In May 2014 a van driver ran into the rear of my wife's car whist she was stationery waiting to make a turn. His fault - he admitted it - and claiming off his car insurance.

Into the body shop stipulated by the car insurance - they quoted $4800 + tax. They told me that the insurance company would only pay them $4000 + tax for the job.

I asked where the other $800 was going? They said the insurance company keeps that as their "profit" - WTF?

The car was repaired within a week and paid for by the other drivers insurance. BUT the claim is still outstanding - they've offered my wife $5250 compensation - an industry standard compensation figure.

11 months later they are refusing to pay her $4,000 medical bills for whiplash treatment and out of pocket expenses! These were approved by them at the time based on their medical examination by their Doctor.

So now the lawyers are fighting and adding their huge costs to the bill. Meanwhile my wife is nowl suffering from stress from what was a simple rear end shunt accident.

Yes two groups of vultures that plague life today, insurance companies and lawyers.

I rarely deal with either and not feel violated when I am done.

Sorry for your wife's troubles. Tell her that stressing out about the doctor bill is not needed. Her health is more important than $4000.

It stinks that you did what your supposed to do and are still having trouble!!!

let us know the name of that insurance company so we all can avoid buying there insurance.

You telling me that little scratch caused your wife a whiplash!???

(quoted from post at 11:43:21 04/26/15) You telling me that little scratch caused your wife a whiplash!???

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Wife's car was stationery in the road waiting to turn right. The idiot driver of the van was travelling too fast to stop and hit the rear left corner on wife's car.

besides the whiplash she suffered severe bruising to her chest & neck from the seat belt.

I had a similar deal with 21st century insurance. Instead it was my work truck and trailer they decided to total it meaning they only paid me 40 cents on the dollar what it was worth. Then they wouldn't pay the medical until I got a lawyer. By the time it went four years with the lawyer fees, the doctors pretending to give me medical treatment there wasn't enough of a settlement for me to get the operation I needed. What I got was pretty close to the other 60 precent of the property damage and I still hurt every day. That was in 2009.

Insurance companies are unrepentant in their efforts to avoid keeping up their end of the contract.

While a good idea on paper, insurance these days seems to have become a game they play up to the point of being a scam. Promise
everything and deliver nothing, about like typical politician.

I feel for you and your wife.
It is almost impossible to deal with Insurance companies.
Sad that this country is run/owned by Insurance companies and Central Banks!

About 35 years ago my daughter bumped a carload of people of a certain ethnic group very common in California in my hometown at the time of Santa Clara. She called me to the accident scene and the damage to my '69 Ford Torino GT was a broken front parking light lense that cost $16.25. The car she bumped was so beat up it was hard to tell what damage the bump caused on it but the people in it claimed serious injuries and my State Farm Insurance finally awarded them $3350 after much ligitation and many depositions, etc. My daughter was not ticketed at the time and the city police officer at the scene said he shouldn't even have been called because there was such minor damages and no apparent injuries.

Was your wife on vacation when this all happened or do you live in GB? Your IP address shows you to be from GB. Don't take this the wrong,
way, but I'm having trouble understanding how your wife got whip lash from this accident, that said, if she was looking around at traffic,
and had her head in the wrong position when she was hit, it's very possible. The next two questions are what I'm truly wondering. How do you
get both whip lash and seat belt bruising. Seems you should only be able to get one, unless you were hit extremely hard and hit a car in
front, but the picture doesn't seem to indicate this. The biggest question though, is if you're from GB, is there not socialized healthcare
there, and as such, you shouldn't be directly responsible for medical bills? Like I said , please don't take offense to this, I'm just
having trouble understanding this. I'm really not trying to pick on you. I hope you get this sorted out with the insurance company and don't
end up losing thousands over this. I've only had one comprehensive claim with an insurance company, and it went very smooth. I just hope I'm
never put in your situation.

(quoted from post at 12:32:50 04/26/15)

(quoted from post at 11:43:21 04/26/15) You telling me that little scratch caused your wife a whiplash!???

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Wife's car was stationery in the road waiting to turn right. The idiot driver of the van was travelling too fast to stop and hit the rear left corner on wife's car.

besides the whiplash she suffered severe bruising to her chest & neck from the seat belt.

Click to expand...

bout 10 years ago i was driving in the passing lane of an highway and came over a steep hill and 200 ft down i hit a van like yours from behind that was waiting to make a left turn.I hit him while full on the brakes at about 20 ml/hr and pushed his right side bumper and fender over his rear wheel and in the process pushed the whole van in the opposite lane(luckely not into traffic).All that time i had a semi beside me and another on behind him that i was trying to pass so i could not avoid plowing right into that van.
2 older people in the front seats,..nobody got hurt though..just some frayed nerves.
There was no left turn sign there and no room for the van to get of the lane. I did not get a ticket.
I year or so later they got rid of that left turn altogether when someone got killed in a likewise situation and the family sued the highway department.

(quoted from post at 00:43:21 04/27/15) You telling me that little scratch caused your wife a whiplash!???

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Probably nailed the bumper rite hard... I can believe it BTDT The soreness in my neck did not come on till later that night.

Next time leave it at the body shop and let the car eat (storage fee's) I guarantee you they will want to cut the feeding tube and will move into your direction.

Whiplash? Give it up man. I could do that damage with my Honda 4 wheeler at 25 mph. Driver would sleep through it. Don't go to court with that picture

I don't have a dog in this hunt but geez, I can't believe y'all are giving the man so much crap about whiplash. You were not there and you don't know how the car reacted to the impact. The neck is a sensitive thing and some people react worse than others. It doesn't take much to get your spine out of whack. I know, been there, done that.

The point of the post as I recall was about the hard time he is getting from the other guy's insurance. I don't doubt that, insurance companies are a pain. My wife was backed into (on a road no less!) by a big box truck and it was a pain in the butt to finally get ahold of the commercial insurance company and get them to deal with their liability. They did fix the car eventually but I never got my money back from the rental which still ticks me off. Wizzo, good luck!

We are dealing with the same thing. Wife got rear ended while driving our Suburban 2500 by a Durango. The only damage to the Suburban
was the receptacle for the trailer light plug got crushed. The rest of the impact was absorbed by the heavy duty hitch. Had frame checked, no
issues. Front of the Durango was pretty mangled. My wife ended up with headache, and neck pain and went to urgent care. She was dianosed
with whiplash. Like many of you I was skeptical until the diagnosis due to lack of damage to our Suburban. The Durango's insurance company
(uses a lizard in commercials) is now refusing to pay for the medical bills because they say there was not enough damage to justify the injury.

One thing I learned...amount of damage dose not always dictate level of injury. I like many others feel like people try to manipulate the system
by claiming injury to get more money....but that's not always the case. Two other things I learned....your head is heavy (some of ours more than
others) and it doesn't take much to injure a neck, also insurance companies are bullies and scammers themselves.