Advice dealing w/ insurance company!

audial

audial

Registered
Ok fellow busa-teers i need some advice. After getting intentionally run off the road 2 weeks ago and just about fully recovered I now have to deal with my insurance company about the bike. Since I was run off the road and the f#cker took off the police only have the tag number of a vehicle matching the description that was found about 2 minutes after the accident parked about 2 miles down the road. Good thing is even though I cant remember what happened the right front side of my fender is cracked and there are rubber marks where one of his tires obviously made contact. Now I have to let the police investigator do his part. In the meantime until the other driver is found and officially charged my insurance company (Geico) will fix my bike since I have full coverage.

Damage to the bike is front nose, windshield, t/s light, front fender, left fork tube, mirror, clutch lever, clipon, entire left fairing, frame slider, stator cover, left rearset, rear body. I haven’t priced everything out yet but I’m estimating about $3000 (just parts) and that’s not including my dinged PM wheels ($2600) and oil soaked PP’s.

Also, since the bike went down on the left side and shattered the stator cover, do you guys think the engine was shut down by the tip sensor before it lost all the oil, or did it lose the oil and the oil pressure switch shut it down? In either case, the bike slid for a good 100 feet on a busted stator cover and my concern is that grit and dirt got into the engine. Should I push for an engine teardown for inspection?

With all that said I have been told that the insurance company may just total the bike if the repairs are within 15% of the bikes value. NADA lists the value at $6300 retail. I have $12,000 in the bike so if they total it does that mean they hand me $6000, take my bike, and leave me dry f#cked up the @ss?

Also, I do all my own work on my bikes as I have for 20 years and I prefer to be the one that fixes it. Do you think the insurance company will give me crap about that? Has anyone had dealings with Geico?

Any advice or experiences greatly appreciated?
 
I know what you are going through. My son was hit by a lady and the Police watched the whole thing. When dealing with the insurance com. he still owed money on it and they only wanted to pay him the book value for his bike. It left him oweing about 2k on it. We was able to get a little more money for all of the things that was done to the bike but still not enough to pay it all the way off. We did buy the bike back and put it back togeather fr my other son that is just starting to ride.It sounds like you have a lot of money in yur bike so if it get totled buy it back and you should come out ok. Good luck I hope everything works out for you.
 
well i ate hit hard 30+flew i craked my frame in half and about 10K in damage check everything. for me the frame did not crack till i got my bike back. watch out. i had about 1200 miles replaced it and today have 20.5k on it.
 
I have Geico as well -1st question is was there damage to your gear? You may be able to claim that. When you have made changes to your policy or renewels did you list accessories? You shoudl be able to claim those as well. It might take you closer to the cost of your damage. If they total the bike, they will give you blue book plus any increased value that you have had added into your policy... but, if you hadn't updated your information or are really short of the 12K that is in your scoot, you are gonna have problems...
 
Get your recipts and maybe a est value from a shop if you know some one that will write one! In writing makes a diff! But buy it back by all means. They will give you first dibs if you demand it. But you will never make out as good as if they caught the hit and run jerk. The green dude sucks deal with the cave man he is fair!
all_coholic.gif
beerchug.gif
 
I am an Independent Insurance Adjuster who contracts with insurance companies to inspect damaged bikes and settle claims.
The typical motorcycle policy usually allows for $1,000.00 of aftermarket items. If yours is a typical policy without any additional endorsements you can usually add $1,000.00 to the ACV actual cash value of the bike immediately prior to the loss. I have found that most insurance companies will total a bike at around 80% of the ACV. They love to do this because they can recoupe part of their loss with the salvage of the bike, from what you have described maybe $3,000.00 it could bring in salvage. Plus they get the bike off the street. Very rare for an insurance company to offer the insured to buy back the salvage with motorcycles. It's not like automobiles.
My advise if they repair it thats great. If they total it go online and find comparable bikes for sale as close to the same as your bike was and print those sale adds just in case they come at you with a low figure for the ACV. Then you can say "well that may be what you come up with but you don't think it accurately refelects this bike in this market area. They will have a difficult time against your documentation. Oh yeah try to be nice about it, you catch more flies with honey, you know the rest.
Hope it helps.
brad
 
If they total it, you might have the option to buy the bike back for real cheap and just carry a salvage title.
 
I have Geico and had a MC accident several years ago. Geico was pretty cool about the whole thing. Paid for all the damage, minus my deductable plus my helmet and gear. At the time this happened I let a shop do the repairs because I was on the road most of the time driving a truck. Everything worked out fine. Also with Geico, as long as you have updated your policy with the extras you have added. They should cover it. If not, they probably won't. At the time this happened, the adjuster told me that if I wasn't happy with his assessment I should go to Geico and they would probably work with me. In my case he didn't want to cover my gear, but after talking with Geico, they did. Good Luck
 
(brad @ Dec. 21 2006,23:09) I am an Independent Insurance Adjuster who contracts with insurance companies to inspect damaged bikes and settle claims.
The typical motorcycle policy usually allows for $1,000.00 of aftermarket items.  If yours is a typical policy without any additional endorsements you can usually add $1,000.00 to the ACV actual cash value of the bike immediately prior to the loss.  I have found that most insurance companies will total a bike at around 80% of the ACV.  They love to do this because they can recoupe part of their loss with the salvage of the bike, from what you have described maybe $3,000.00 it could bring in salvage.  Plus they get the bike off the street.  Very rare for an insurance company to offer the insured to buy back the salvage with motorcycles.  It's not like automobiles.
My advise if they repair it thats great.   If they total it go online and find comparable bikes for sale as close to the same as your bike was and print those sale adds just in case they come at you with a low figure for the ACV.  Then you can say "well that may be what you come up with but you don't think it accurately refelects this bike in this market area.  They will have a difficult time against your documentation.  Oh yeah try to be nice about it, you catch more flies with honey, you know the rest.
Hope it helps.
brad
Click to expand...
Good advice! Even check according to the paint color you had. Some bikes with specific paint schemes are very hard to locate. A similar thing happened to my buddy on his R1........He took the time to look in his local market for similar bikes and was armed with info on what he had found. After rejecting their first offer they (State Farm) upped the check amount almost $1400 more. So it pays to do a little research and time. Good luck with it.
 
Thanks guys.... Yeah all our gear is destroyed. My fiance was on with me and both our helmets, jackets, pants, boots and gloves are shredded. It will cost $2700 just to replace all our gear, but thats cheaper than meat and bone!

I'm hoping that the accident investigator will do it right and everything will fall back on his insurance company and I can sue the hell out of him. In any case i do have the tag number from the cager and already have the name and address where he lives  
guns.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

darby ofool
insurance companys suck
Replies
18
Views
947
Odyssey
O
GIXERHP
Insurance ????
Replies
8
Views
453
BIGSMOOTHH
BIGSMOOTHH
H
Insurance shock
2
Replies
28
Views
1,236
gtblades
gtblades
newman
Insurance.
Replies
0
Views
532
newman
newman
L
Need advice fast
2
Replies
38
Views
1,633
racerV
racerV
Back
Top