Expert: webfoot - 12/22/2006

Question
On November 14th, 2006 my mother was on her morning commute to work. As she was merging onto I29 Northbound from I94 Westbound, she came to a stop for a semi that was trying to merge ahead of her. While she was sitting there, a Honda came from behind, rear-ended my mother, which pushed her into the back of the semi. My mom's car, a 2001 Audi A6 2.7T, suffered major frontal-and rear damage. Her airbags did not deploy. She also walked away unharmed from the accident. The driver of the Honda that hit her, however, suffered from injuries caused by her airbags. Now, my question is this: the girl's insurance company will only pay us about 12,000 for totalling out my mother's car when the value of it is actually somewhere between 16- and 20,000. We'll settle for 16 because we just want enough to pay off the car and put a nice downpayment on a new A6. However, where it gets tricky is the fact that, at the time of the accident, my mom was in the process of switching insurance companies and her car wasn't covered by an insurance company at the time of the accident, which means my mom has been dealing with the other driver's insurance company by herrself. Now, my question is, how do we successfully get the other $4000 that we're going after? Do we keep pursuing the insurance company, or file a suit in small claims court for the $4000 against the driver? My mom feels absolutely terrible because the girl who hit her was only 18 years old, but at the same time she needs to replace her car, and I think my mom is being quite generous since she's only going after the value of her car, and not after lost wages, car rental, towing fees, etc...but at this point I don't know how to help her. This happened in the state of North Dakota, also. Thanks for your help, Ihope I didn't make it too hard to understand.

Answer
The insurance company owes the actual cash value of the car.  This takes into account the condition, options and mileage.  The number is based on what vehicles in the area are actually selling for,,,not what some book says it should be worth.  If you are hoping to convince a judge to believe a book over actual sales statistics, then best of luck.  

I'm not sure why your mom would have lost any wages as there are rental car agencies all over the country and the insurance company does owe for the rental.  As far as towing, the insurance company owes for that.  

I would recommend that you pursue what they owe for.  If they say it's only worth $12k, then you'll need to double check their research.  It should include comparable vehicles with verified sale prices.

Good luck!