Steven

To answer Bobs question, the insurance company I am dealing with is Atlanta Casuality. Every time I have asked for a superior within the company, he/she would be worse and meaner than the previous. I just can't beleive hoe rude they all are.
I went to my laywer today and he requested I bring him a copy of the policy. In the mean time, he wants me to visit the body shop and tell the shop owner what I don't like about the repairs. The owner is good friends with me so I am not going to be rude. He already knows I wanted and requested only OEM Porsche parts. He also knows I didn't want any bondo. He just did what the insurance comany told him to do. As sated before, Atlanta Casualty told me to 'stay out of it!'
One more thing. My lawyer told me that Atalnta Casualty has a bad reputation in the 'lawyer circle' and are constantly being sued.
Ill keep ya'll updated. Unfortunalely it will be another week or so. I went to the shop today to see if it was ready and found out they had closed for the week of the 4th. I just can't win!!

God bless y'all!

Steve

UDPride

Good luck mate. I dont know why they gave you the line of "well since your car is old, you can only have these parts." If thats the case and the parts are too expensive to replace, you're vehicle should be considered a total loss if it exceeds the value of the car. Wold they say the same thing to a guy with a 1934 Duesenburg?

Sounds like you are gettin the typical phone run around. I had same problem with Progressive. You have to call this number for claims service, press 9 for this, 5 for that, key in your policy number, get routed here, wait on hold there, leave a voice-mail at another place, and that place refers you to another office. Its customer no-service. I said the hell with it and switched to State Farm and an agent that has an office 5 minutes down the street. If theres ever a problem, I can march in his office and give him hell face to face where he cant ignore me and has to look at me. I think these large insurance companies just like to hide behind the telephone. Not endorsing State Farm, just the fact that I have much more leverage now that I can walk in his office and tell him Im not leaving until something is resolved. He cant hang up on me then. People are just naturally more lenient when you meet them in person too because they dont want you to go kookoo and slug them or tear up their office. When they see your fists clench and steam shoot from your earholes, they know they need to do something if nothing else for their own personal safety. <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" />

PrerYDoG

With phone systems, I've found that in 95% of the cases, when it says "Press 1 for this, 2 for this, 3 for this" you just don't press ANYTHING, and you get a rep REALLY fast. Yup, and when I'm pissed enough to do it that way, the first rep that answers is just DYING to route me to someone else

Tabor

Just as a note: I am on my second claim with State Farm and they are great. Another note: In the state of Florida insurance companies only have to pay wholesale value on your car when it is totaled, and guess what Progressive does? Yep, they are real *** whackers.

Perry 951

Perhaps it was just me, but when I had the fire, I had Progressive on the line the second the fire department left. I asked who they would like to have it towed, and they got in touch with a flat bed while I was on the phone. 2 hours later is was there. (That is fast concidering this happened in rush hour)

Then I told the person taking the claim that I wanted the name of the field rep in my area, and that I was taking the day off to meet with them. She gave me a cell number, and 9am the next day, he was at my door. Over the next week, we worked out the details on payment, salvage/no salvage, and new rates. (rate did not go up). It took less than 2 weeks for me to have cash in hand.

The only problem I had was haggling over the car's value. They showed 8 grand as a value, and I showed them 13 grand in recipts. I got $7300 and no salvage title. I was firm with them every step of the way, and would not settle for anything less than what I could put it back together for.

Just be firm until you get what you want, but do not lose your cool.

Tom R.

Eleven years ago I had a similar accident with my 86 rx7 and the wet entrance ramp to the triborough bridge. Geico replaced the bumper and fender with aftermarket. I wasnt happy with the way the parts lined up. I took the car to a geico drive in claims center (geico, not a body shop) and showed how the fender didnt fit right etc. he gave me the difference in the cost of the parts. I dont remember if the adjuster gave me the opportunity to have the car redone.

They also told me I had to take the parts they were giving me. I think it cost them more in the long run!!!

And enough of the lawyer bashing. keep it up and i wont help you when you when i have the correct answer!

We have a lot of answers here, only problem is none of them are correct!

Tom R.

Every policy is a contract. every contract is governed by state law, and the terms of the contract. every insurance company has different terms.

What are the terms of steves contract? guess thats why his attorney wants to see the contract, show him the line that says they can use bondo - or the line that says they cant.....

What experience have others had with insurance companies and OEM parts? you all mean well but...

wjk_glynn

I though UDPride's posting about Progressive was very interesting becuase I've had the exact opposite experience with them.

5 years ago I... shall we say... was a little over exuberant with my (previous) 944S2 and I crashed it.

I was able to drive the car home but lets just say, the rear hatch key was ~12 inches to the right of where it should be.

I called Progressive, they arrived within 20 minutes. The guy looks at the car, cuts me a check for $5K right there and then and tells me that this is almost certainly not enough but that until the car was up on a lift, he couldn’t tell everything that needed to be fixed. The body shop added another $2K to the price and again, the Progressive guy drives out with the second check. That day!

I live in Northern CA and maybe because Progressive are not big players here, they were trying really hard to get business.

Karl.

UDPride

Karl, IM glad Progressive took car eof you. Maybe it was just an isolated incident with me, but they honestly would go two weeks without calling or returning my calls. Took me 8.5 weeks to finally get the check for my car's payoff. This was 6.5 weeks after they determined it was totaled and 5.5 weeks after we reached a payoff value agreement. They had to switch paperwork from one office to another, do this do that, etc etc etc. Hell, it took them 3.5 weeks to get the accident report. I was so tired of waiting on them to get it to me I drove 50 miles to Cincinnati to pick it up at the police department myself.

Not once in the first 5 weeks did Progressive ever ask how my passenger's injuries were and if she was okay. I can only speak for myself. The unbelieveable thing was the guy who totaled my car had Progressive too and yet things took this long. WHen I chanegd to State Farm I asked the guy if I was hit by another State Farm guy how long a claim should take to get resolved. He said, "My God, everything I need is in the computer. Shouldnt take more than 2 days."

I don't know. When I canceled I was transferred to the Progressive "response team" that jumps in to help customers who arent happy with their claims service and claims representative. I eventually talked to one of the higher up guys in the ladder and flat out told him I thought my $1700 a year in car insurance had bought me close to nothing.

I almost kept the policy though and replaced the totaled car with the WRX. I shopped the WRX policy online to see how much it would cost and it was competitive. I then called Progressive to verify the price and they told me, "Oh, you didnt include your other car in that quote, so only those prices are for new customers switching from other insurance providers." What a crock I said. If thats how they treat the customers they already have, I'll go somewhere else where Im wanted.