Quick question, I dented up the whole side of my F150 today in a parking structure trying to avoid a crash. Called the insurance company got a quote, inspecter is coming out Monday.

The repair bill is ~8K give or take after all the allowances are factored in. Thing is I could care less about the outside of the truck, its a truck. I have heard that you can simply take the repair value in cash and then fix the car yourself. I could get the rear door working again for maybe ~200$ and pull the dents out with a bat,and use the rest to payoff a good chunk of the remaining loan.


Has anybody done this or is this just internet rumor that I have heard.

 

"take the dents out with a bat" thats funny.
If you take a cash payout they might send you a check for like 50% of the repairs and holdback the balance until you can prove the repairs are completed or paid.

 

I'm assuming the lienholder is not you, since you still have a loan. I'm pretty sure that you cannot take the cash then.

 

Car is going on my home equity loan so I can write off the interest. So I am the lien holder of note as of ~1 week. I am going to call the lien holder on monday to see what they say.

 

I'm fairly sure you're not allowed to do this. Your insurance company will only pay a repair shop after it's repaired (I think).

What you're talking about doing is to use your insurance company as a ATM machine. Every time some ya-hoo needed money they'd crash into a parking lot wall and wait for the check. it don't work like that.

 

You absolutley CAN do this. Your insurance company is responsible for paying for any damages you are covered for. The includes parts and labor, they use whatever forumla or hourly wage they like to come up with that figure and that is what they send you a check for. If you like you can spend it all on a Hawaii vaction. You have ZERO obligation to use all or any of the money to fix the problem.

 

This is correct.

Where are the rest of you guys getting your information?

 

Where are you getting your info? Do you have a link? I'd say it's unclear one way or the other.

What I've always heard you have to get your car fixed with the money and no big-screen TVs with the money left over.

Here's a link I found: -->>CLICK

It could go either way, since you do currently have a loan you probably have to get it fixed.

 

You submit a claim to insurance, they either issue you a check for the estimated cost of repair or they pay the shop directly. I f you get the check, you can leave your car on the side of the road and spen it all in Vegas. It is your money at that point.

 

I am not going to go run to vegas with it, but it is a work truck so its going to get dented again and paying off the loan is more important to me then the cosmetics of the truck at this point.

I will tell you what the insurance company says on monday when I get the report back on what they think it will cost to fix.