Expert: Ron Cercone - 1/18/2010

Question
May 15, 2009 I was in a collision, where the other party admitted and was found liable.
As of today, January 18, 2010 I have not accepted any settlement offer from Mercury Insurance, as I feel they are not making me an offer that would restore or indemnify me to my original position.
In the process Mercury Insurance mailed settlement payments two times which I mailed back refusing the offers.   
I recently paid my California Vehicle Registration which was due in November 2009 and paid on time, and found the California DMV issued a non-operational Revived Salvage Registration Certificate.
I have not accepted or agreed to any settlement with regard to the incident in which it is found I was not at fault. I have not given any verbal or written acceptance to settle nor conveyed any rights of title to Mercury Insurance ownership of my vehicle.
I believe Mercury Insurance in an attempt to aggressively force me to accept a settlement, has made a filing to the California DMV that my vehicle is a Revived Salvage. Mercury Insurance has told me when the settlement checks were originally mailed to me  (which I returned refusing the offer to settle)that the notices to the California DMV are automatically generated and that Mercury refuses to reverse this situation claiming they can not do anything about it once the filing has been made to the California DMV.
At this point I feel, I do should not continue any negotiations to settle until the issue of the registration of my vehicle is taken care of. I feel this is another tactic to force me to accept their settlement offer.
Please advise me as to what I can do. I am to receive the proper registration first
before continuing any further negotiations to settle my loss of property claim.
Thank you,  

Answer
Douglas,

Believe it or not, your refusal to cash a check does nothing to pressure an adjuster to come up in his offer. They just get to earn more interest on your money.

If they sent you a check that does not have a release on it, then cash it and keep up the fight for the difference. If it has a release, draw a line through it and see if the bank accepts it. You can settle the vehicle claim before the injury claim, which could take much longer. And tell them you want to retain the salvage. They can't total your vehicle out without your permission. But now this DMV thing is another problem to deal with because you did not know your rights. See if the DMV will remove the "salvage certificate." There are many ways, from easy to hard, to get the difference in what they owe you on the vehicle. Consider the eBook on Total Loss Auto for Claimants at UClaim.com to help you with all these problems.