You probably don’t need an attorney for a property damage claim

I’ll be the first to tell you that any kind of insurance claim can be needlessly complicated. That’s essentially why my job exists. If handling your own bodily injury claim in North Carolina was easy, I would be out of a job. The good news is that handling the property damage portion of your claim is probably something you can handle on your own. In fact, having your attorney handle that bit, too, might even make it worse. Why is that? Soooo glad you asked!

The first thing you should know is that if you’re in an automobile accident in NC your property damage claim and your bodily injury claim are SEPARATE. It’s OK to handle the first one without finalizing anything on the second. If you’re worried about it, get an attorney for your injury claim and they can walk you through it, but you don’t need them to handle the property damage portion (more than likely, anyway).

There are really just two kinds of property damage claims: Repairs and Total Losses. If your car needs repairing, take it to whatever shop you want (you’re not forced to use anyone the insurance carrier recommends, but you can) and have them work on it. The carrier might send you an initial check, but don’t worry! That’s not the last one, I bet! If the body shop sees other stuff that needs work (they almost always do) they’ll ask the carrier themselves to send a supplemental check and that’s normally done pretty seamlessly. When you get the car back, just make sure everything feels right and the second you notice anything off, take it right back and tell them. That should keep it on the at-fault carrier’s dime and not yours, so don’t wait too long!

If the costs of repairing your car exceed 75% of the car’s value (a moving target, btw), then the carrier can deem it a “total loss.” At that point what they owe you is the fair market value of the vehicle at the time of the accident. An average of the stuff you find on websites will give you an idea as to what that number is (let them give you their number first, as sometimes it will exceed yours, but not always). If you really, really, really love your car and want to salvage it, they’ll give you near FMV (minus a few hundred bucks) and you can have it and do with it as you wish.

Most of the time, these things go fairly smoothly. More importantly, there’s not much that an attorney can do to change them. Repairs need doing or they don’t. The car is worth roughly what it’s worth. There’s not a lot to argue about in these situations. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule…maybe it’s taking too long, maybe the values you’re discussing are night and day, etc. If you’re really having trouble, you can talk about those issues with an attorney, but just keep this in mind: Almost no one is happy about their property damage. It either took too long, it was too inconvenient, they hated the rental car, or they really wanted their car to be worth more than it was. It’s just hard to be satisfied with the state of our system. But there’s a lot more that an attorney can do with your injury claim, so maybe that’s where you can find some satisfaction. Call me at 919-929-2992.

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Jeffrey Allen Howard, Attorney at Law, PLLC
1829 E. Franklin St. - Bldg 600
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

(P) 919-929-2992
(F) 919-636-4779

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