I'd hope this would come down eventually. I got hit way back when in 2018 in my Model 3[0] and it was a pretty fresh car. Not many on the road and Tesla still figuring out how to scale the manufacturing.
I think part of the high repair price was that the Model 3 was so new, which also meant that there were only a few shops that could/would work on it (Tesla does not do body work, or at least not back then). I had to wait a month before they would even look at it and then they dropped the huge price tag. What was I going to do? Go the only other shop and wait another month? They had all of the leverage and could charge as much as I wanted.
The total bill was ~$28k. StateFarm only covered ~$22k so I have to pay ~6-7k out of pocket (it was an insane "uninsured driver" who car-jacked a teen and hit 4 other cars. Pictures in the album of him preaching on top of our car).
>They had all of the leverage and could charge as much as [they] wanted.
That's how it works! You got cheated.
On an unrelated note, I upped my liability insurance from the $25k minimum to $100k just because of those crazy repair prices. It only cost like $17 or so more.
Not sure exactly how this worked, but StateFarm didn't actually max out on the claim but they maxed out on the hourly rate. The shop was charging something like ~$170/hr to work on the car because of "high voltage" or "EV" or some bullshit like that and StateFarm maxed out at like ~$120/hr.
I will say the car is like-new repair but they still raked me over the coals.
Or you might win in court and collect. For thousands of dollars, yes, it's worth my trouble to fill out a form and send in a court fee. Worked for me...
It seems nuts to me, that in a shared medium such as public roads, that there isn't some upper bound in collision liability for unintentional damage caused to other vehicles. Given the average cost of a car today, this incident would likely clear whatever bar is set anyway, but given the necessity of driving (at least in the US), the idea of someone making peanuts be liable for multi-tens-of-thousands repair bills for low-speed collisions because someone chooses to drive a car that costs as much as a house, just feels like an unnecessary kick in the nuts.
They should change the liability limit so that the maximum payout is the cost to buy an equivalent-functionality vehicle of the same age on the used market.
So if someone owns a $80,000 (new price) 2018 pickup truck, and someone smashes into them, the most the driver at-fault has to pay is the cost to buy a low-end 2018 pickup truck of any brand. Someone whose 2005 Ferrari gets smashed gets enough money to buy a 2005 small car, maybe a Hyundai.
Cars are supposed to be for transportation, not status symbols. If you want an expensive car, you should pay for the insurance to cover it.
Yes, you should. All you need is basic transportation; if you want more than that, then you should pay the insurance to replace it when it gets damaged or destroyed.
I'm not even sure you should get anything at all from the other driver.
Do you demand the Earth compensate you when your house gets damaged in a storm, or do you pay for the insurance policy that covers that?
That's a fairly bad faith argument. The earth neither has agency or insurance of its own to pay out costs.
If instead someone comes and burns down my house, I would hate it if they only had to give me a "equivalent functionality" tent in the wilderness because the law considers all shelters to be equal.
They didn't try to claim that there is no difference between Veyron and a Prius.
They propose there is some baseline subset of functionality and value that matters, beyond which no one else but the owner should be obligated to care about.
I have to say it makes sense to me and I can't work up any sympathy for the counter argument.
If you choose to take some obnoxiously exotic delicate object out into the wild world, that should not be the rest of the worlds responsibility to protect your priceless irreplaceable paint job made from extinct dodo egg shells and door handle made from aluminum smelted from lunar rock samples.
In an interaction between those two vehicles, only one person chose to put a million dollars at risk, and one was just trying to get their groceries.
True, but that’s really beside the point. Given the fact that everyone has some non-zero risk of being at-fault, it’s also true that people who own more expensive cars raise the insurance rates for everyone, including those who don’t choose to own cars that cost insane amounts to repair.
If you have 9 cars that cost $10,000 to replace and one car that costs $100,000 to replace, that means your average cost to replace a vehicle among that population is $19,000.
So in this hypothetical scenario the one asshole who owns the exotic car is nearly doubling the insurance cost for this population set.
> If you have 9 cars that cost $10,000 to replace and one car that costs $100,000 to replace, that means your average cost to replace a vehicle among that population is $19,000.
Except that replacement average is only meaningful and the $100k exotic car an asshole if the rate is the same among all 9 drivers to insure all of those cars and the risk pool among all 9 drivers is identical.
A $10k car driven 60k miles a year by a 17 year old male, owns potentially a larger slice of that $19k average then the $100k car if it’s driven 500 miles a year by a 55 year old woman.
This is why insurance companies employ actuaries because it’s a tad more complex to calculate policy risk than adding up all insured values and dividing by the number of the insured.
I’m fully aware that my math is more crude than the real thing, it’s just there to illustrate the concept.
I didn’t factor in the risk factor of the driver profiles because it’s nearly irrelevant to the discussion, since the discussion is surrounding the plain existence of an expensive car on the road versus not being on the road, all else being equal.
It doesn’t really matter whether the owner or the expensive car is a perfect driver because the scenario under discussion is whether I need car insurance that covers high value damage to other people’s vehicles. If that super responsible wealthy person owned a less expensive car, the total amount of dollars paid out by insurance companies still decreases.
In other words, if my insurance company knew for a fact that nobody on the road drove a car worth more than $10k, my rate would be lower, if only slightly.
In your scenario where low value vehicle drivers are less responsible, it actually bolsters my point because those owners need to insure against being at-fault in crashes with the “more responsible and sophisticated wealthy vehicle owner.”
I'm not an expert on car values or insurance. I'm guessing the 2005 Hyundai is pretty much worthless, while the 2005 Ferrari is still somewhat valuable. Maybe I should have picked an older Ferrari? Collectors still buy and sell certain models for a lot of money I think.
If it helps, change my proposition to use a 2015 Ferrari as the example.
I think we just get rid of liability insurance altogether and we all cover our own cars and passengers. No liability is assessed in a road accident, just self coverage. Exceptions would be pedestrians and cyclists. Maybe tack on a cheap liability coverage for them.
> Exceptions would be pedestrians and cyclists. Maybe tack on a cheap liability coverage for them.
Some states have a state fund for things like this. New Jersey did in 2010 when I got hit biking to work. I didn't use it because I'm incredibly bad at paperwork.
It makes sense for when a Civic hits the Rivian. The Civic's 35k (or whatever it is in CA) will get exhausted quite fast.
But it comes with a different issue. No fault will cause the Rivian's to have to make a claim. No issue here. But a claim means rates go up. And that is incorrect.
> It seems nuts to me, that in a shared medium such as public roads, that there isn't some upper bound in collision liability for unintentional damage caused to other vehicles.
As opposed to intentional damage? Does anyone start their car and plan to cause damage to others?
Also worth considering the mindset of how to evaluate these events:
Where's the line on 'unintentional'? When does it become careless?
Given how little it costs, it's kind of strange people skimp on it. My $100,000 property damage coverage costs $120 a year. I should consider upping it really.
Good questions to which I do not have an immediate answer. What does 'property damage' cover? I could see scenarios where it included at-fault damage to other cars, but I could also see it being specifically about non-vehicular property damage.
This almost feels like hospital pricing in the U.S. - where there's the official price that assumes you have insurance, and then the actual price you can negotiate down to if you're paying out of pocket.
To be fair, dealing with insurance carries a substantial cost in medicine, and it makes sense that there is a discount for sidestepping it. Of course, that doesn't excuse a $0.05 Tylenol pill being upcharged $200 or whatever, but it's not a pure scam.
Your logic doesn't even play out in reality. The insurance negotiated rates are lower than out of pocket rates, there's a 'discount' for cash paying but you still pay more for doing them the favor of cutting the insurance companies out of it.
For all intents and purposes, when the insurance company declares your car a total loss, they are just offering to buy it from you at what they believe to have been the market price of your car had it not been in a crash (you can haggle with them).
A few years ago we had a nice car that was in a moderate crash. The damage estimate was around $20k, but the insurance company said that they would rather have the car for the parts than fix it - it had a bunch of options that were in very short supply at that time. We worked out a deal, and they cut a check. I think I paid $80k, drove it for a year, and sold it to the insurance company for $75k. LOL.
"All that is required for a vehicle to be a write-off is that it would cost more to return to marketable condition than the market value it would then have."
Yes seems to agree with what I said. "marketable condition" i.e. not undriveable.
Many states still only require $15,000 of liability coverage to drive, so there's going to be a lot more uninsured / underinsured motorist claims in the future.
The Rivian owners insurance will frequently end up paying out, via that underinsured motorist coverage.
To detail, though the Rivian driver has under insured insurance, the at fault party is still responsible for that difference, and the insurance company will take the at fault party to court if they can recoup a portion of the remaining $35k at low expense.
In this case, sure, but unless Rivian drivers are unusually careful they will end up being at fault around 50% of the time. And their insurance companies will adjust their rates to account for $42,000 fender benders.
Rivian drivers are almost certainly unusually careful by that understanding. Just like any other owner of a car with price significantly higher than average. Hell, just the fact that they own a recent model car means they are safer than average.
Most under-25s probably aren't buying a $80k car as a starter vehicle, for example. And that group is very overrepresented in accidents. I doubt an average middle-aged Rivian driver is much different from an average middle-aged Toyota driver though.
1. design a car with a bunch of cheap off-the shelf parts, but bind them in a way that requires complete disassembly and tons of man-hours of work to inspect
It’s not a 30x multiple. That looks likely to be a $3-6K repair on a new F-150 with repairs and paint on the tailgate and bed side, a replacement bumper and trim, a replacement light, misc bracket replacement, and rental truck.
The other insurance company cut a laughably low-ball check, hoping the Rivian owner would cash it and go away.
> The other insurance company cut a laughably low-ball check, hoping the Rivian owner would cash it and go away.
yeah, it happens all the time. in california you don't need to talk to the other drivers' insurance company. they will hound you for days, just ignore them. absolutely do not submit to a recorded interview with them. ignore their threats, of which there will be many - all bullshit, made-up nonsense. forget your nice upbringing and be a total ignorant dick about it, because they're trying to get you to slip up verbally. this is especially prevalent with "lesser" insurance companies because they know they're about to be hit with an enormous bill.
i guarantee you the other driver will 100% lie their pants off with zero shame or remorse. their insurance company knows this, because all of their customers are shitty drivers who lie through their fucking teeth as easy as breathing. not only will they lie to the insurance company, they'll lie to their own god damn family. (one time the guy's daughter called me directly to try to ask me about my version of the accident because his english was non-existent - i hung up on her). they may be so good at lying that they convince themselves. stop and think about how incredible that is. these people are out there, driving around.
it happens every single time (again, because their customers are morons), which is why they resort to dirty tactics to get you (the good driver who is not-at-fault) to say something incredibly stupid due to naivete and because your parents taught you manners.
talk to your company's adjuster EXCLUSIVELY. they will abrogate the entire thing through the appropriate channels. if you have a dash cam the entire process takes like a week. if you don't have a dash cam, do the smart thing and buy one. don't tell anyone other than your adjuster about the footage. once they catch the other party in a lie based on the cam footage it's an open-and-shut case. upload an unlisted video to youtube so that you control access to the video (to the extent that nobody runs youtube-dl on it). you need to think two steps ahead of whatever moron is on the other end of this claim.
when i got hit, along with my video submission, i annotated a google maps screenshot with a full diagram of the accident with both street and satellite imagery. yeah - my claim had satellite photos - you think this is a motherfucking game? i pre-wrote my recorded statement and read it back into the phone like i was back in grade school. i probably did 80% of the adjuster's job for them.
as soon as you are involved in an accident it's a legal battle with no holds barred. you never know what absolute cockamamey horseshit (medical bills, injuries, etc.) they will just fabricate out of thin air. the crowd on HN is either broke as a joke, or upper middle class++ - if the latter, protect your ass in every way possible. put your business thinking cap on as soon as you get in the car.
> However, Redditor and fellow Rivian R1T owner Earlgr3yh0t was also rear-ended a few months back, except their rear quarter panel had a basketball-sized dent just below the taillight. They took the R1T to a certified Rivian body shop who said the entire rear quarter panel, as well as some tailgate internals, needed replacing. The total cost of replacing an entire body panel and some tailgate bits was reportedly just over $14,000. So a $42,000 rear bumper replacement seems exorbitant, but Apfelstadt says he's happy with his truck.
Pretty sure this is referring to a different incident with a different car.
> The $42,000 repair cost, along with Apfelstadt's rental car cost, was very close to maxing out the other driver's $50,000 insurance payout limit.
Sounds like they reported $42,000 plus something to insurance
I read it that way the first time too, but going back they mixed two incidents: One enthusiast had a treat quarter replaced for 14K, but this guy was charged 42k plus rental car fees that took him close to the at-fault party's 50k limit.
The back quarter panel was damaged and that piece goes all the way from the tailgate to the front windshield
This is what happens when you train people to be nothing more than parts-swappers and design with that sentiment, along with a "we'd rather you buy a whole new one" attitude. Skilled labour i.e. welding and fabrication and other metalworking skills gets rarer and even more expensive, to the point of disappearing.
I would like to see a change in public policy on this. If you’re going to operate a car that costs 40k to get repaired on a small accident on public roads perhaps the operator should have to foot most of the bill. I believe the state of Michigan has this implemented.
I think part of the high repair price was that the Model 3 was so new, which also meant that there were only a few shops that could/would work on it (Tesla does not do body work, or at least not back then). I had to wait a month before they would even look at it and then they dropped the huge price tag. What was I going to do? Go the only other shop and wait another month? They had all of the leverage and could charge as much as I wanted.
The total bill was ~$28k. StateFarm only covered ~$22k so I have to pay ~6-7k out of pocket (it was an insane "uninsured driver" who car-jacked a teen and hit 4 other cars. Pictures in the album of him preaching on top of our car).
0: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sbne4ATVZgD74Hon7