Our Faithful Ram was Totalled by Reckless Uninsured Motorist

That sucks!

Sorry to hear of this Jessica. I've been in insurance for over 18 yrs. Not all carriers are bad, some do their best to take care of their customers. The one I work for does and the one that insures my home and autos does also.

I suggest you make a list of all your upgrades, when you did them and their cost and if your not happy with their acv valuation, present that and ask for what you feel is a fair increase in the value for those items. Ask what source they used for the acv and check other sources like kbb, nada, etc...see want they list it at and go from there.

In this day and age, insurance is a highly regulated industry, arbitrary low balling and such is illegal. The problem with insurance is most folks dont take the time to read their policy before they accept it, then want to get upset when they have a loss and the claim isn't paid like they think it should be, but it's all in the policy. Insurance is a for profit business, not a volunteer organization, it's also not a warranty policy like some think it is. Have the documentation you need to support what your asking for and be polite about it and if you have a good carrier they will try their best to take care of you, but you have to have realistic expectations also. A 2009 ram is only worth so much regardless of what maintenance work is done. It was worth a lot to you and I understand that, but that sentimental value does not impact actual value.

You could always buy a used frame and bed and have it swapped out if you wanted to buy your truck back and fix it. Just a thought.

Glad to hear your ok most importantly. Stuff can be replaced, you cannot. My wife, son and I were just rear ended a few months back. Were ok and the other guy had insurance, thankfully. I'm former LEO so I wont even get started on uninsured, unlicensed operators....or that would result in another book being written here. Good luck.

The ***** of the entire thing is you buy the vehicle. You keep it up, keep it nice, some ******* wrecks it and you get **** as a settlement. You can never replace it for the settlement. Forget sentimental value.

Jessica Smith said:

He got a ticket for failure to control speed, and that's it I think. Well, and his vehicle is dead. I was going to try to take him to small claims court for the $500 deductible when done. The police report has all his info on there and those that had insurance their companies agreed he was 100% at fault, so should be an easy win I hope.

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Even if you win, do you think you'll ever see the money?

demonram said:

Even if you win, do you think you'll ever see the money?

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Supposedly if you win in small claims and they don't pay in 30 days, if you have an address, which we do, you can send the sheriff to collect enough belongings to sell to come up to the $500 + court costs required. Would be worth it on principle, as I didn't do anything last time I was rear-ended by a lady at a long stoplight who shockingly actually admitted that she was on her phone, noticed her vehicle began rolling, and slammed her foot on the gas instead of brake pedal in a panic and so I lost $500 since she too wasn't insured.

GsRAM said:

I suggest you make a list of all your upgrades, when you did them and their cost and if your not happy with their acv valuation, present that and ask for what you feel is a fair increase in the value for those items. Ask what source they used for the acv and check other sources like kbb, nada, etc...see want they list it at and go from there.

In this day and age, insurance is a highly regulated industry, arbitrary low balling and such is illegal. The problem with insurance is most folks dont take the time to read their policy before they accept it, then want to get upset when they have a loss and the claim isn't paid like they think it should be, but it's all in the policy.

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Thanks, we're looking for receipts and did some searching on carvana and those types of places for similar vehicles in advance. My guess is they will offer close to KBB, but if you go to Carmax and try to actually buy something at KBB value in this market they will point and laugh at you, market is crazy for used trucks right now. I'm expecting at least a little bit of hurt to be coming, but we'll see! Maybe they'll be cool and let us swap on some of the easier to put back stock components so we can resell the aftermarket upgrades at half of new or something.

Jessica Smith said:

Supposedly if you win in small claims and they don't pay in 30 days, if you have an address, which we do, you can send the sheriff to collect enough belongings to sell to come up to the $500 + court costs required. Would be worth it on principle, as I didn't do anything last time I was rear-ended by a lady at a long stoplight who shockingly actually admitted that she was on her phone, noticed her vehicle began rolling, and slammed her foot on the gas instead of brake pedal in a panic and so I lost $500 since she too wasn't insured.

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Ha, that's awesome. No such mechanism here but you can garnish them if you find out where they work, if they get a settlement, etc.

Judgement proof people are tough to collect from, but the punishment is their lives are generally not something you'd envy. I'd rather be the guy who has to buy insurance and cover an umbrella policy to protect my lifestyle vs the guy who's lifestyle precludes owning anything of value.

Jessica Smith said:

We just got word that our loaded 2009 Ram that we just renovated with new LED headlights, taillights, trim, some suspension components, wheels, front camera, fresh tint, etc was totalled out. I was hoping we'd get several more years of service out of her.

Luckily we have uninsured motorist coverage, as the guy that rammed the Ram spoke no English and had no insurance, but luckily was found 100% at fault since all the vehicles he hit were at a stop. Haven't heard back yet what their lowball offer is going to be, but I hear they don't take any of that into account and just give you the same KBB value as another poor condition truck that is half rusted through. Maybe they'll let us at least take the wheels off, as they were untouched by the rear-end. Appreciate everyone's time and assistance repairing and modding the Ram over the years! With gas prices and wanting to fit in the garage again and used Ram prices being pretty high, looking to stay in the Dodge family but with a little crossover instead of a Ram, and placed an order for a Dodge Hornet. Hopefully it doesn't suck, but will pop-in to the other car section and what not to update.

Thanks again all!
Edit: Oops, I meant "reckless" not "wreckless"... if anything the guy that hit everyone was "wreckfull"!

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You're lucky he didn't take off as has been our experience in Dallas. Cops said they always took off after an accident because most of them were illegals.

Tray Burge said:

You're lucky he didn't take off as has been our experience in Dallas. Cops said they always took off after an accident because most of them were illegals.

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Might have tried but his vehicle and the vehicle he hit first were quite jacked up, and probably wouldn't have gotten far limping away in the heavy rushour traffic at the time! I heard Houston is notorious for hit and runs too, especially since we have so many people that run fake paper plates. He actually did have real plates which was a surprise and showed proof of insurance but the insurance said they had no policy for him and that apparently it was just purchased, printed, and cancelled. Probably a new trick to get out of no-insurance tickets.

Tray Burge said:

You're lucky he didn't take off as has been our experience in Dallas. Cops said they always took off after an accident because most of them were illegals.

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Had a small car hit my F350in the rear right after arriving in Flatistan. I had a 4x8 bolted to a flat plate in the hitch receiver. Got out and all I heard was "arriba arriba andelay ANDELAY" as they drove off leaving a pile of broken glass and plastic. All I had was a couple splinters.

Illegal immigrants have ruined Houston. No insurance, fake paper plates, converter thefts, and that all just the small stuff.

I hate no insurance/hit and run people! I hope you get a reasonable value from insurance. We recently had to pay our deductible to fix parking lot damage from a hit and run on my wife's car. That sucked, but thankfully damage was repairable. Then that poor vehicle was rear-ended within a couple months of fixing it... that one the driver stayed and had insurance so at least we don't pay this time. Best of luck with the insurance; hopefully you can work out a fair price.

Phillyrube said:

Had a small car hit my F350in the rear right after arriving in Flatistan. I had a 4x8 bolted to a flat plate in the hitch receiver. Got out and all I heard was "arriba arriba andelay ANDELAY" as they drove off leaving a pile of broken glass and plastic. All I had was a couple splinters.

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Basically what happened to my wife in her minivan years ago. Lesson: Make sure to be insured.

Phillyrube said:

The ***** of the entire thing is you buy the vehicle. You keep it up, keep it nice, some ******* wrecks it and you get **** as a settlement. You can never replace it for the settlement. Forget sentimental value.

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Pretty much exactly what has happened with my wife's 16 equinox. I'm very particular about maintenance, but some idioit backed out of a driveway last year or two hard into the LR, did 7k in damage, now the rear end hit this August and whatever trade in value it had before is now toast. It's very unfortunate for sure.

I got in a headon with an illegal with zero insurance as well. Mr Sanchez was .33 drunk for good measure. Totaled my brand new truck 6 months new and injured me and my date. I got my first lesson about uninsured motorists coverage. For good or for bad we have to now live with these people in high numbers, and they are not insured at a very high rate. You think that illegals take a handful of cash to the insurance companies and asking for insurance? Yeah, No it is not likely. Would you or I do so if the shoe was on the other foot? I mean if you were poor and working under the table, totally their current condition, Probably not as well right?

Here is the important info, boost the amount you can get from uninsured motorists, you can get 300-500k for like 26 bucks extra. The best part, you can get that amount and it doesnt change your rates at all if you have to use it. When that drunk illegal crossed the center divide and hit me I got the max 15k because that was my coverage. Now thanks to high coverage and umbrella policy, I'd get a million if the next drunk illegal happens to hit me.

The thing that hurt the most, he only got 11 days in jail, man that still chaps me.

.

I have had 500K for the last 10 years but seeing the increase of hit & run or no insurance at all I'm looking into a million dollar umbrella policy...

I was recently rear ended on 2/28/22, and my prized Lincoln MKX was totaled. The guy who hit me was driving on a suspended license but he did have insurance. The insurance company gave me, how much it would cost to buy that car with those options today. It ended up being about $8000 more then I could have sold or traded it for. I took the money and bought this Ram. Me and the guy both spent some time in the hospital, and he got no Jail time. All they did was slap his hand. They should give you enough money to buy another vehicle just like the one you had.

My insurance is a commercial policy
$5,300 for a $750,000 Commercial Auto w/ $2,500 deductible

I hope that i never need it, but it is there

Spree said:

I was recently rear ended on 2/28/22, and my prized Lincoln MKX was totaled. The guy who hit me was driving on a suspended license but he did have insurance. The insurance company gave me, how much it would cost to buy that car with those options today. It ended up being about $8000 more then I could have sold or traded it for. I took the money and bought this Ram. Me and the guy both spent some time in the hospital, and he got no Jail time. All they did was slap his hand. They should give you enough money to buy another vehicle just like the one you had.

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Good point. Given the current value of trucks Jessica may wind up way to the good even with all the upgrades and maintenance considered. Its certainly possible.

Spree said:

I was recently rear ended on 2/28/22, and my prized Lincoln MKX was totaled. The guy who hit me was driving on a suspended license but he did have insurance. The insurance company gave me, how much it would cost to buy that car with those options today. It ended up being about $8000 more then I could have sold or traded it for. I took the money and bought this Ram. Me and the guy both spent some time in the hospital, and he got no Jail time. All they did was slap his hand. They should give you enough money to buy another vehicle just like the one you had.

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I hope you are fully recovered! We got an offer, but its certainly lower than anything you can find from the big no-haggle places like Carvana/Carmax/Vroom/etc. for something half as decent as we had. We'll see, they super low-balled the repair shop we chose when they said it was repairable offering them $3K when actual quote from the repair shop ended up being more than $10K higher than that, lol! The insurance initial quote didn't even include really obvious things that were crushed in the impact, so I'm guessing the adjuster just did it based on low resolution pictures taken with a Blackberry. So maybe the initial offer is low on purpose. *fingers crossed*