And the prius takes damage

Here the insurance will settle or go to court. You are rarely called into the court room. Same thing basically happened with my gf, her prius c was totalled. Then she got contacted by geico the guy was suing but tht geico would take care of it. Nothing came from ot or if it did we dont know.

 

Its time for an update!

My deducible for this damage was $1000 and the Geico adjuster estimated $750. The Geico adjuster misrepresented my options. There was one specific question I asked during the entire process: with Geico recovering money, will Geico try any harder to recover money if it costs $1001+ or will they try equally as hard if the cost is less that $1000. The adjuster assured me that recovery team tries equally as hard no matter the amount as long as I paid money. The actual policy was: Geico only tries to collect if the payout is greater than the deducible and will not get involved if the payout is less. So had I went ahead with the $750 repair taking the adjuster's word for it I would have taken it to the next step to get Geico's help to collect and they would have said get lost. If the payout is even one dollar over the deductible Geico makes an attempt to recover all money. Explaining this to the adjuster he "did not know this was the policy" but the home office was very specific to clarify.

Remember due to dealing with an illegal alien and only having a license plate number as hard evidence (the expired insurance card and lack of all identification with just his word that he was who he said he was) made it so that small claims will be very difficult without the power of a company like Geico behind trying to find him.

Needless to say I suspended the repair and got a few more quotes. The general consensus was lining up that the repair would be >$1000 but that both doors and the rear quarter would need to be blended. A ding = repainting nearly the entire side of the car?! All the body shops were saying this could not be fixed paintless dent repair either.

I composed a letter with a copy of the police incident report, an estimate for the $750 and a picture of the accident and sent it to the alien. I asked him to pay it or I would have Geico collect and there is a chance he could be taken to court. I sent it to the address on the expired insurance card and told him I was giving him two weeks. I am hoping his ignorance as an alien will scare him into paying but in truth I am suspecting I will never hear from him.

Coincidentally I brought my prius to the local dealership for the parking brake recall. I asked if anyone on site fixed dings and to quote me. They immediately said they could get 95% of the dent out and it would cost $250. A day later I had it done and actually they got 100% out. I cannot tell there was ever an impact regardless the angle I look at it from. This also saved the accident on the record and the bondo and repainting. In the worst case I lost $250 but it has only been a week since I sent the letter so lets see what happened. I still do not think I should have taken the $500 he offered. He wanted me to follow him to a bank, who knows, he might have taken off. We will see how it all plays out.

On a side note, the car was at the dealership for about four hours. It was very humid where the guy was working (there was a point where he took me back to show me the dent under the light). When I left the dealership my car starting doing what I will term the Korean Rat Syndrome which can be referenced here:

a Steering issue in gen 4th 2016 | PriusChat

This is the first time the car ever did this and I am wondering if the humidity caused something to swell in the steering wheel. It definitely felt a little tighter when it got to the places where it squealed. I let the car sit for about 2 hours and went on a 10mile drive: silence. So it seems to have been a fluke. I will keep an eye on it but there is no question the baby rats were crying.