Should I claim this on my insurance?

Just an update:

I spoke with Geico this afternoon. The man I talked to was actually extremely helpful, he didn't mind taking the time to answer all of my questions and explain the whole process to me.

I'm taking the truck in tomorrow morning to have a repair estimate done. The claims adjuster present will then write me a check for the estimate, and I'll be free to get the truck repaired as I see fit!

Does anyone have more advice given this recent development?

Thank you to everybody so far, you've been extremely helpful. I knew just what questions to ask after what I learned this morning.

 

That's the way it should work if you don't use one of their program shops.

Glad you got good service... overall, I rate Geico as one of the worst companies for claim service. Doesn't mean all their handlers are bad.

 

If you take the check and don't get the repairs done, those panels are essentially dead to the insurance company. So if you cause future damage to the same area's, they're going to be uncovered entirely. If you take the check and do the repairs yourself, you'll need to show the work to the insurance company, and then those panels will be covered again. They'll often take pics just to show the panels are repaired and you're not trying to scam them. I've gone that route more than once but it's been a few years. I had a ducati break a strap and slide off a trailer once, lots of cosmetic damage. Duc dealership estimated 4x the countries GNP to do the repairs. I took the check, used it to pay off the bike entirely and did the work myself. Back to full coverage with a paid off bike that was nicer than when it rolled off the lot.

I use state farm, geico may be different. I only know geico has the worst commercials on TV and I hope they go out of business so they will stop .

 

Not entirely true. If you don't have it repaired, and have another accident in the future, they will consider the damage you have now as "prior, unrelated damage" in the new claim. They will then reduce the payment to repair the new damage by the amount it costs to repair the old damage.

For instance, your door may cost $200 to repair the damage on it now. Let's say you're in another accident and the door is damaged again and it costs $400 to repair the entire door. You don't get the $400, of course, you get $200.

 

did your airbags go Off? I would thing that they would

 

Nope, no airbags. I'm glad they didn't.

 

No.. there's no damage in that accident that would make the airbags go off. Airbags to off from either a very sudden deceleration (think hitting a brick wall) or if the impact causes damage far enough back to cause sensors to be hit. Certainly not the case in that accident.

 

Get a quote from a body shop. If the damage is under $1000 try to pay out of pocket and if its much more than that consider claiming it. It also depends on your deductible but if you get insurance involved you may end up paying more in the long run.

 

Depends, what does your insurance history look like?
If you have horribly high insurance and make a lot of claims, I'd say pay for it all yourself. If you have very little accident history or tickets, then you may be able to take the hit on it for this. Just ask about how it will impact accident forgiveness.

Me, I would take it to a shop and ask for repair costs. If I could foot the bill myself without must heartache, I would cover it myself.
I don't like having high insurance premiums. I want that number as low as possible, even if that means I pay for a $2K repair.