Does anyone have experience with dealing with insurance companies for getting the devaluation of their MINI after it had been in a accident. It appears that my car is going to be repaired with over $10K in repairs but I know this will reduce the value of the car greatly and I would like to find out all that I can for how other people have handled this in their cases.

Thanks,

Scott

 

In most states, anything more than a minor fender bender will require disclosure by the insurance company to the state title office (meaning that a CarFax will reveal that there has been a significant repair). How this will affect your car's value however will depend upon many other factors, but most importantly it will depend upon what you decide to do with the repaired vehicle. If you decide to sell your MINI immediately after getting it fixed, be prepared to take a hit, if you plan on using your MINI for the next five to seven years, there will be very little in loss. For one thing, you would have "proven" that the repairs were to your satisfaction by using the vehicle for that extended period of time. So the ball is really in your court as to the car's "devalued" value.

 

I'm in California, one of the more protective states, and I don't believe we have any such requirement here. The only kinds of activity that goes to the DMV is that an accident happened when the value is over $500 BUT this information does not go towards any central information depository but instead is only used for insurance rating purposes. CarFAX only gets salvage type of information. I would be interested in hearing of any state that does have accident information that CarFAX has access to. CarFAX should only have access to public information such as Technical Service Bulletins and Salvage & Title information. No accident information should be accessible to CarFAX unless the car was totaled.

 

Why is that? If I'm looking at a used car I sure as heck want to know if it has been in accidents before, whether or not it was serious enough to "total" the car. I've done CarFax checks on at least 20 cars, some of which I purchased, many of which I did not. In numerous cases minor accidents turned up, as well as facts like the car had been in a rental car when new. I'll be getting another CarFax membership again soon since I'm looking to buy a used Miata, and if it has been in an accidents (or multiple accidents) I definitely want to know. CarFax doesn't always show everything, but the many times I've used it has shown it to be relatively accurate.

-Keith

 

I read this in an article a few weeks ago but I believe that in Illinois, it is not legal for crash information to be reported by third parties such as Carfax. I can't confirm, but I believe that the dealers have a very strong lobby here.

Hopefully, someone here can be a little more definitive than me.

 

Do a search on diminished value - there are a few posts and threads about it. I just went through the process with my car (not a MINI, though) and was able to get some good info. here. Also, check to be sure a diminished value (or dimunition of value) adjustment is available in your state.