Car crashes come and car crashes go. Who shall pay nobody knows, but one things for sure the impact will be felt after the crash. That's right, all those dollars you spent on your car has gone down. Say it was worth $15,000, now it's $10,000. That's called diminished value or accelerated depreciation as we call it in Canada. Whatever it is, it's not usually covered in your insurance policy. Would you buy a car that was in an accident? Probably not. That's the same thing the buyer would think if you were trying to sell your car if it had an accident. Would you like it? Probably not again. Yet this is the reality of this world. We want things with no problems and that makes things hard for you: the owner. No insurance company wants this to become the law because they don't want to pay for something that they can't quantify. You see if you drive it until the wheels go under, there is no diminished value. Thats the reason they won't pay. Usually people have to lawsuit just to get the money and brokers always try to keep it on the down low.
Georgia, USA is probably the only place where it's probably the law that diminished value must be compensated for the owner of the person in an accident regardless of who's at fault. They claim that since it's your property, you have the right to sell it and you'll never know if your never going to ever sell it. Since it's your property the insurance company is supposed to put you back in the place you were prior to the accident, isn't that the reason we pay for insurance. To get our money back?
Many brokers will fight over this issue. Some may even lawsuit against a law such as this to be passed. Yet know this fact, all the claims they make are false. The sky shall not fall, insurance rates will stay the same and you'll have a happier state/province.
