Re: Help with insurance appraisal

[ChuckKuecker <ckuecker@mcs.net>]

At 15:08 5/30/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The way things are presented here, it certainly appears that once the car 
>has been considered totalled by insurance company X, then even if the 
>owner "keeps" it, he still cannot drive it (should he desire to fix it) 
>but can only keep it as parts. Is that true? I was under the impression 
>that you can "buy" your total wreck from the insurance company and then 
>fix it and drive it if you want.
>
>
>Ilias

In my experience, the insurer NEVER gets the TITLE to the 'totalled' car
unless YOU give it to him. If you 'buy back' the car, in reality all you are
doing is settling for the difference between the appraised value and what
the insurance company expects to get when the car is sold. 

In Illinois, the 'totalled' car is still licensed and legal to drive -
unless the TITLE is transferred to someone else, YOU STILL OWN THE CAR,
regardless of whet ANYONE else says. The insurer has no right to your
property unless you agree to give it to him. Of course, the onus is on the
owner to make whatever repairs are required to make the vehicle drivable again.

In the absence of state laws requiring certain disposition of a 'totalled'
car (and I suppose some states REQUIRE it to be 'junked'), the ownership of
a vehicle does not change without the explicit approval of the owner of
record, and the transfer of the title. The sense of this thread seems to be
that some people think that because they are insured, the insurer
automatically has the right to decide ownership of the car. This is not so!

Now, if you let the insurer have the title, and it gets sold to a scrap
yard, it WILL get that 'salvage' title, and is probably never going to see
the road again, until it is made into a new car...

Sorry about the rant.



Chuck Kuecker

ckuecker@mcs.net

'83 Scirocco (in process)
'58 Ghia Convert
'75 Bug (rusty!!)
'67 Bug
'63 Bug
'91 Vanagon


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