Originally Posted by dstuart
I will take the other side of the argument for now and ask how and why you should be treated differently than anyone else. From what I understand from what I have read so far any time a car is involved in a significant accident it will lose value on resale as compared to the same car without an accident record. Why should you be awarded extra money because of " diminished value"? You think the SRT6 is a special situation because it may be valuable some day? Right now the SRT6s are selling at a pretty low price in the teens to low twenty thousand even with low mileage. This "special value" right now is in your mind and not in the reality of the market place. You may be right that 10 or 20 years from now it will be considered a collector's car but no one has any way of determining that right now. For that matter; any one who has an accident with their car can make the same claim about their car. I do not know of any laws that could force the insurance company to pay more because the car may be valuable in the future. If I am missing something here in your argument then I apologize; otherwise please clarify.
I think AH is entitled to a diminished value reimbursement. To me the issue is the degree of damage that was done to his car. If his car had been totaled then he would have received full value from the payoff. If his car merely suffered a dented fender then the fender would have been replaced and repainted and the impact on future resale value would have been minimal. But his car wasn't totaled or suffered a dent - it had structural damage that has now had a major effect on his car value. He has suffered a financial loss that can be documented. Now who is going to cover that? Either Allstate or the negligent driver who ran into him. Allstate is the logical choice to collect from but if Allstate balks then the driver is on the hook. And if she doesn't like coughing up $8K to cover her negligence then she is free to sue Allstate for failing to financial cover her.