Filing Diminished Value Claim

[FLSUnFIRE]

A year ago I was in an accident that was fully the other party's fault in my one year old car. It was pretty clear from seeing the owner that they had minimal insurance ($10K property in FL) and this was pretty much confirmed by their insurance rep. The repairs totaled $9,600. No doubt my vehicle lost a good chunk of value (new vehicle with 7K on the odometer - I was hit just after my first oil change) Their insurance was not helpful with any DV and I didn't choose to fight it as I'm sure he had no assets and there was only $400 likely remaining on his coverage and it would be more stress/annoyance to maybe get $400.


So, today, I got a solicitation from a DV firm. I'm thinking about assigning my DV claim and letting them take the hassles. If they recover any value, they'd take 33% and a varying "fee" for recoveries over $499 but otherwise no cost to me. I'm thinking the possibility of getting $400- 33% would be worth my effort to fill out the online form. I wasn't going to get anything anyway as the hassle of documenting and dealing with their insurance company wouldn't be worth it.


Anyone have any experience with these firms (AMLOSSDV.com is the company and I don't see any bad things about them on a quick search). I figure I have nothing to lose but are there any gotcha's that might bite me?

 

[Ready]

I’m guessing the solicitation was based on their combing through a database and sending out generic form letters, rather than looking at the specifics of your case. You’ve already done the basic homework of finding out the insurance limit of the at fault party. You probably could have got the remaining $400 if you pushed the insurance company hard. But at this point, have you already signed a settlement and release on the claim? If so, you may have waived your rights to pursue anything further.

In any case, I personally wouldn’t chase it for such a small dollar amount given the set of facts you’ve laid out. It’s not worth the aggravation.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

In any case, I personally wouldn’t chase it for such a small dollar amount given the set of facts you’ve laid out. It’s not worth the aggravation.

Filling out their form (mostly filled out from the database) would be easy so that wouldn't be a hassle for me and no more aggravation than filling out publishers clearinghouse and hoping to win.



The other driver was insured by Geico and I tried to just get them to give me the $400 to his limit and they were all about making it a pain for me and I wasn't going to waste time driving around paying for appraisals. I was not happy with their attitude, $400 would have been cheap liquidation for them and turned me off to being a customer again in the future.

 

[Ready]

If the policy limit is $10K and you already received $9,600, this firm is going to have to do a lot of work to collect their $132 commission. I can’t say for sure how they will respond but my guess is they will either make you do all the work of getting the appraisals anyway, or just pass because it’s such a small amount.

If your curiosity is dictating that you go down this path just to see what happens, I don’t see any harm coming from it.