Lexus meets '86 C10 (pics of damage)

[Lt.Del]

his excuse the sun was in my eyes

So he is a gambling man.  He knew he couldn't see, he just hoped nothing or no one was in the road.  Heck, just keep driving, no matter if something is up ahead.

Hint to an attorney...check his cell phone records.  I bet he was on his phone or texting the instant of impact. 

[fitz]

 
[/quote]
I think the point is that this middle of the road scheme is garbage. If you have a newer car or an older car they can tell you a value, but they don't do justice to anything in between. A '69 camaro and a new camaro book similarly, give or take a few grand. Anywhere in the middle is scrap metal as far as the book value folks are concerned. heavychevy91 is in the crosshairs to get screwed in this deal, just like Mike Phillips got hosed on his blazer.
Fitz; if you dropped a pile of cash into that rusty M1009 and completely restored it and built a 10 second racer out of it I bet you would be upset when somebody smashed into it and offered you 500 bucks, cause that's all it was worth when you bought it.
[/quote]

  I agree that more people should have stated value insurance on their specialty vehicle where the book value does not do the vehicle justice. The stated value lets the vehicle owner and the insurance company know up front what the vehicle is worth in the event of a total loss.
  What I was getting at is that the value of the vehicle is set by an appriser, the owner just can't pick a value (like saying my rotted our $500 M1009 is worth $100,000 as an example).    The idea is to get the vehicle insured for it's realistic replacement value.
  You made a reference to a 69 Camaro. Yup, I got a hugger orange one in the garage and it has stated value insurance on it. The value of it was set by an independent appraiser (the car gets appraised every few years). The appraiser looks the car over and then does research to see what similar cars are selling for. One thing the appraiser loves to see is receipts for work done. They want to know if that great looking small block under the hood is a SB 454 that you spent $7500 on or is it a worn out 305 that is just highly detailed.

[Grim 82]

Situations like these should be a warning to us all. Things get out of hand quickly when you start building a vehicle that started out for all practical purposes 'junk' and end up being a great rig with $6000 worth of reciepts in the glove box. I didn't really think much about additional insurance until now, but if my 82 was wrecked they wouldn't offer me enough to buy just the tires and the trans, let alone the rest of the truck.
fitz: My apologies if my other post sounded like an attack. Awesome camaro
heavychevy: Roll up your sleeves and fight this tooth and nail. See if you can get it appraised at what it was worth minutes before the accident. Somebody should be able to do that, it's not like it was burned to the ground. Good luck.

[fitz]

fitz: My apologies if my other post sounded like an attack. Awesome camaro

No problem Grim, this is a good topic to cover, as I'm sure many of us could wind up in the same boat in the event of an accident.

[frogman68]

his excuse the sun was in my eyes

So he is a gambling man.  He knew he couldn't see, he just hoped nothing or no one was in the road.  Heck, just keep driving, no matter if something is up ahead.

Hint to an attorney...check his cell phone records.  I bet he was on his phone or texting the instant of impact. 

No even better the sun was behind him lol that is why I was laughing

[SMiller]

I don't have any help to add but this...


"If" you had a heavy duty hitch your frame would not have buckled, the HD hitch goes a lot farther up the frame and would have kept it from bending under like it did. Having said that your heads might have went through the back window and seriously hurt you since the truck would have really been slammed forward instead of crumbling like it did.

I hope this all works out for the best for you, $2,500 should go pretty far towards making your truck even nicer. After you patch the frame you might want to box it in and install the HD hitch, that should make it a lot stronger then it was and make for a long\happy life.

[choptop]

Sorry about the loss. Insurance companies are not fair when it comes to our trucks. I have Hagerty on both of my 50's vehicles, and they are covered for $15,000 each. It would replace one, but the other (less than 60k miles, everything is original) couldnt be replaced. But i may be able to build another one for that amount. We just dropped Geico after 15 years because they wouldnt cover my wifes WS6 after a hail storm caused the paint to chip on the hood. Our other insurance company said it should have been covered. Kept talking about how it didnt dent the hood??? Ifs composite, just like the majority of the rest of the car, it wont bend, it will flex and cause the paint to turn loose tho.
  Too bad you arent closer, I have an 85 frame that Id give you.

[Irish_Alley]

I dropped geico after they covered my car 100% but didn’t cover me due to "my choices" in coverage that I didn’t know I selected because it was all over the phone and I never under stood the paper work kind of my fault. but I had to fight with them to get my car 100% I think it was about 15,000 then only wanted to pay me trade in value I laughed at them and said but im not trading it in. they also wanted to check my millage so I "lost the key" and the digital gauges wouldn’t light up so they couldn’t check it. the still didn’t want me to 100% so for some reason they decided to show up with a tow truck and again I laughed at them and told them to get off the property until they send me a check about a month or two of fighting and calling they finally sent the check to the bank 100% and then they forgot to pick the car up lol. About 3 months after paying for the car I finally called them up and asked when they will pick it up they were confused why it was still there at my house. I guess what im saying is don’t give up it may take a little longer to get what you want but fight for it. Go some place where they know what they are looking at and not something they think should have been traded in as "c4c"

[xCaliC10x]

Sucks about your truck, but glad you are ok.

Go on eBay, craigslist, etc, and find trucks, like yours, in good shape, and tell them "Your guide says they are worth $2900 but they sell for $5000" Do not take their first offer. Grind on them. DO NOT let them salvage title your truck. Depending on state, it effects ability to register and insure. Also, it will be less valuable when you sell it, so you need to bring that up with them. If they start giving you shoot, I think you, and your passenger may have some neck injuries that have surfaced...................

Being in Socal and the land of bad drivers and illegals with no insurance, I carry a TON of insurance. Uninsured, under insured, full coverage and theft etc. I have had stated value policies before AAA Collector car is great, but an '80 is too new so I had to go another route. AAA had my 66 VW bug was $108 a year for a $13,500 agreed value. It has to be plausible. Nobody is going to give you a stupid number for a car. If you can get them, great. If not MOST insurance companies will cover stuff you have bolted on to the car at the time of the wreck if you can obtain a rider. Wheels, motor stuff, etc with pics and receipts. My C10 has a stated value of $8500 with my insurance company. They have pics of it, motor, everything that way IF something God forbid happened to it, then they would have documentation it is not your average C10. This is what I figure, IF something happens to my truck, I would have to receive to obtain another and get it to what I have now, or buy one like mine.....

[fitz]

It has to be plausible. Nobody is going to give you a stupid number for a car.

Well said.

[Grim 82]

heavychevy, how did it turn out?

[Psycho71]

A good reason to have collector insurance, such as Hagerty,  you can have your truck insured for what ever value you are willing to pay for. Actually it is quite affordable. You can do a quote online.

The main problem I had when trying to insure my '71 C10 with Hagerty or other collector insurance groups is they won't let you use a truck like a truck, and they limit you mileage. I was told, by Hagerty, that I would not be able to tow with my truck, or even haul with it. I could only drive it to and from automobile functions like shows and meets, and to and from Maintenance facilities. And given the restrictions, it could not be used as my primary vehicle. Not that it is, I drive a company truck every day. At this point I asked them, hypothetically, I have a '71 model classic travel trailer I might want to show with it, can I tow the trailer to a show with the truck? "Nope, you will have to tow the trailer with a separate vehicle, then attach it to the '71 at the show", is what they told me.

Not what I was looking for as I use my truck to haul the boat to the lake, and use my truck for hunting trips as well as trips to the hardware store. My truck is a truck, not a show queen.

So I ended up calling around to all the big insurance companies, and Progressive ended up writing me an agreed value policy with no driving or use restrictions. I used $10k and they wrote the policy. Now according to them, they will not automatically pay me $10k for my truck, but that amount or whatever repair costs are, whichever is the lesser amount. Luckily I have not needed to test this policy as of yet.

My point is, before using a collector insurance company, be very clear of the policy and it's restrictions.