After the Car Accident: The Agony of Negotiating with the Insurance

Image grab from Google

What is next after buying a car? You get a car insurance.

This is the common flow when purchasing a car. As the car sales grow each year, you also see car insurances growing exponentially. Competition in this industry continues to strengthen. Various rewards and freebies are now being offered just to attract customers.

With us it was no different. After having the side of our car slammed by a truck, we learned how an insurance is a needed cost. Our car had a good and trusted insurance coverage. They also give reward points to customers who do not claim their insurance in a year. As we do not want to lose these reward points, instead of using ours, we opted to use the insurance of the truck driver. Afterall, he caused the accident, he should pay for it.

But that was the biggest mistake and hardest lesson for us. Because in that way, we accepted blindly the terms and conditions of the truck driver's insurance company.

After talking to the insurance company of the truck driver, they delivered our car to the nearest Volkswagen Dealership and Repair shop in the city. At the time of that accident, we were having a vacation in Santa Catarina. And in 2 weeks, we needed to return to Rondonia (the state we live).

Our crashed Volkswagen Up.

We drove by car to Santa Catarina and was expecting to return by car too. And though we knew that it will be hard, never did we expect that it would take 4 months to just repair the car. Imagine, 4 months without our car, 4 months of taking uber (of course, while still paying for the monthly of the car we cannot use).

And though we knew that it will be hard, never did we expect that it would take 4 months to just repair the car. Imagine, 4 months without car, 4 months of taking uber (of course, while still paying for the monthly of the car we cannot use).

Why it lasted that long? We also tried to get an explanation and listed it below:

After 1 week:
The car had not been inspected yet. They were waiting for someone sent by the insurance to inspect the car and to compute the estimate cost of repair

After 10 days:
An employee in the dealership inspected the car (instead of the insurance inspector). They sent the estimate cost to the insurance for review and approval.

After 2 weeks:
The dealership didnt start the repair as the insurance did not approve yet the estimate cost. The insurance said they will send someone to audit if the repair cost is correct. As that was not enough, the dealership wanted us to sign a document testifying that we received the car in good condition. We didn't sign as we didn't receive the car.

At this time, we needed to fly back to Rondonia. Not only the airfare ticket was paid by our insurance, but also the ride from where we were to airport (250 km) and from the aiport to our house. We only paid for the ticket of our cat.

After 1month
We learned that the insurance company didn't approve the initial cost estimate. They lowered the repair cost by cutting on some replacement parts and repair process. We complained, but we were ignored. The dealership started the repair following the low budget.

After 1.5 months
They were still repairing the car. We were optimistic that they will finish it by this month.

After 2 months
The repair was halted, they informed us that they were still waiting for the delivery of new doors and other parts of the car. Common, they only ordered it now?!

After 3 months and 1 week
They resumed the repair. The parts had arrived. But as the holidays were coming, they cannot finished it immediately. It is important to highlight that the Consumer's Protection Code in Brazil does not allow the car maker to delay the deliver of parts more than 3 months. Even after complains to the VW, nothing happened. At the same time, it sounded that the insurance company was making a kind of carte blanque to the delays of the workshop.

**After 3 months and 3 weeks **
We were informed that the car was repaired. We asked the father of my boyfriend to pick it up. But they delivered it anyway, without procedures that are the norm, specially when you use your own insurance. Of course that here, it seems that we had more problems with the workshop than with the insurance company. However, the insurance had the power to force the dealership to commit with its customer, in this case, us. At this time, we decided to buy a brand new car (this will be explained in the future).

After 3 months and 22 days
We returned the car. After checking the inside, we still saw lots of paints in the car seats, floor and doors. We were just full of disappointment we didnt have energy to complain anymore.

After 4 months
Finally, they finished the car. The insurance company sent a consolation bag for their failure of delivering and providing good service.

It was a long, agonizing 4 months. We were just too glad when it ended. We sold the car in the south as we didn't want another round of tireless negotiation with the insurance on who and how much they will pay to send the car to us. After all these summarized events here (ommiting long talks in the telephone, stress with call centers and etc.), we just learned that it would be different if we had used our own insurance. We would lose the bonus we have, but the hassle we had in this period costed us so much more.

We bought a new car too. And because we trusted the Volkswagen Up, we decided to purchase the 2018 model. It is an upgraded one with more features (more about it will come!).

Next week, we will visit Santa Catarina again. Another long drive. But we've learned our lesson. And though accidents happen anywhere, practising safe driving will always save the day.