Insurance Company Blues & Totaled Scooter

Hey everyone, just wanted to vent, haha.

I'm in medical school, and for those of you who know how expensive that is, let's just say it will be a long time before I actually make any money (medical school alone will cost about $500,000 before the loans are paid off).

Anyhow, to help save money over the next four years and because I live in a relatively small city (Gainesville), I invested in a 50cc scooter to drive back and forth to school (8 miles each way). The way I worked it out is even with the cost of the new scooter I would save money over driving the car in gas. Also I can park closer to school rather than the closest car parking which is a mile away, which lets me get up a bit later. The scooter got 110 mpg give or take, so it cost me about $10 a month to drive to school and anywhere else I need to go, much better than a tank of gas every 2 weeks for sure.

Flash forward to last week, and this old gentleman decided to try and run me over in his minivan. He pulled into a restricted access parking garage that was down a fairly deep slope, and realized he couldn't get in it, so started backing up. I was decently far behind him, but he didn't see me, and no amount of honking (and 3 other people waving and yelling at him) got him to stop. I couldn't back up the hill because the scooter was too heavy for me to back it up the steep incline. He hit my front tire and stopped, which was good (I hopped off the bike at this point), but then after about 20 seconds of keeping on the brake he backed up again. I was holding onto the scooter and decided it wasn't worth getting run over, so I dropped it and got out of the way.

Fast forward to today, the adjuster says it's totaled... only can give me $1200 for the scooter when I paid $1700 for it. Unfortunately I'm living on loans and can't afford the extra $500 to replace it (on top of TTT, and a service after the first 300 km).

I'm super pissed... I tried my best to get them to come up to juts replace the damn thing since it's a matter of a couple hundred bucks, but no dice.

They're going to let me keep it, but it's totaled, so not sure what to do. Can I retitle it as a salvage? Mostly it was cosmetic damage, but was enough so that all the body parts (not frame) needed to be replaced. Mechanically it's perfect. Would this work...?

I'm just annoyed. It sucks.

 

If the insurance company let you keep the scooter for nothing and gave you $1,200, maybe try to sell what's left of the scooter for $500 for parts and go buy a new one?

 

To be honest I'm not sure if the scooter can part out for much because brand new parts for it are relatively cheap. I think you can get a new motor for like $150 or so haha. Unfortunately everything cosmetically is ruined so basically the only sellable parts are the tires, motor, and battery. I definitely can try, though. Maybe suspension too? Not many parts to these things haha The scooter shop is run by a bunch of cool guys and they might be able to buy whatever salvageable parts there are for me.

 

The scooter was used when it was totaled so they give you used value. You don't total a used Tacoma and they buy you a new fancy one. You get the value of the truck.

Buy a used Ruckus. My roommate and I both have them and they are awesome. His is an 03 with 10500 miles and mine is an 07 with 9000 miles. No issues if you take care of them. It's a Honda so they are reliable and 100 mpg, and let's face it, they look much more badass than a plastic Chinese scooter.

 

Could possibly take the old bag to small claims court?

 

You can't fix it with the $1200?

 

After your response stating how cheap parts are, you've got to be able to fix it for under $1,200, no? Let the guys at the scooter shop look at it, make sure everything is sound and tell you what it needs. They are very simple so just make sure the critical parts and pieces are sound and let the cosmetic stuff slide.

 

I understand, but I just bought the thing 3 months ago. It's a bit different than buying a used car and totaling it, I think. I completely understand their logic it just sucks because I wasn't at fault, and now have no cheap economical transportation. Spending another $500 wouldn't exactly save me tons of gas money anymore.

Also it's relatively small, in my eyes, for them to give me a couple hundred extra to replace the scooter. Then again what do I know. It was a 2013 kymco agility 50 with a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty. Perfect for my needs and even with good resale value when I'm done with medical school.

 

The guy's insurance totaled the scooter, so legally right now I cannot drive it or register it. I can look into getting a salvaged title perhaps but I honestly I have no idea how that works. The quote to fix everything with labor was $1150. Cosmetically I need a brand new bike, practically I just need new turn signals and mirrors.

 

In my experience with salvage titles, once the vehicle has been refurbished/restored/whatever, it has to be inspected to ensure it's safety and roadworthy, then it's issued a new registration under the salvage title. Not really a big deal.

If it costs $1,150 to fix, and they gave you $1,200, I guess I'm not really seeing the concern...fix it, drive the heck out of it, and move on with life. Save yourself some money on the labor, if you can/want, and you might even make a few bucks.

 

Definitely would love to fix it up myself but have zero free time haha. Friday I have 3 exams on about 60 hours of lectures that we went through in the past 4 weeks : O

So to salvage it, would I just have the shop fix it, then bring it to the DMV to get it titled again?

 

Usually you have to take it to a station to get it inspected, make sure the VIN matches, etc. This is in no way scientific, but here's a website to get you started.

http://usedcars.about.com/od/usedcarhistories/a/FloridaSalvageTitleLaws.htm

Unfortunately, this may be one of those situations where you have to call the DMV or go in person and talk to someone about the process. I did find a form on the official DMV website for an "application for salvage title", but no verbiage discussing how to go about it. By the way, I assumed Florida because you said Gainesville...hopefully that's the right state.

 

The husband of a lady I work with buys totaled bikes and cars and fixes them as a business. He's in NH and they all have to go through a pretty intense inspection process before they can be retitled. Talk to your insurance and try to find a local shop that does just that, fixes totaled vehicles. Some insurance companies won't insure salvage titled vehicles and a local shop that specializes in that sort of thing might be able to help you or at least perform the inspection at the end of the repair work. Also keep in mind, at the end of all this, your scooter won't be worth anything. You'll have a very hard time reselling it because of the salvage title so you could end up dumping all $1,200 into the repairs and get basically nothing out of it at the end.

Talk to your insurance company about gap insurance, make sure you don't actually have it. That would cover the gap between what the insurance company paid and what it would cost to replace the scooter.

 

Good point, Mike. You might be better off buying a used, clean title scooter for $1200 and riding that.

 

This is Gainsville, FL? You need title and registration for a 50cc scooter?

 

I really appreciate your guy's help. I'll definitely have to see if the shop has anything used for sale. I know the Kymco's last upwards of 50,000 Km but most people here in Gainesville that have scooters are rich kids and don't appreciate their toys and don't take care of them. I see many many nice scooter in pretty terrible shape, so I definitely don't wanna pick up someone else's problem because they didn't take care of it. I'll have to call the DMV and dr what they say but I also agree that a reliable used scooter would be the way to go. I also assume my warranty is now void, which sucks because it covers anything mechanical at all as long as you regularly change the engine and gear oil. Won't get that again on something used.

Also it's weird but I've never had a car inspected here in Florida. Seems very foreign but kind of silly why the state wouldn't require you to make sure your car is safe each year.

 

As far as I know, yes. Every 50 cc scooter here has a license plate and registration.

 

Quick update

So, when I was talking to the total loss department the past couple of days all of the people would not let me talk to a manager despite me asking repeatedly. They'd just tell me the manager has no power to do anything, will say the same thing, blah blah blah, and then when they did transfer me, they would hang up the line. Great service, USAA!

At some point, I got in touch with the medical adjuster (I had to be seen b/c of fluid in my knee following the accident), and she got me directly in line with a supervisor whom I left a message with. The supervisor called me back, heard my story, looked into things a bit, and found that in Florida, if the total worth of the vehicle is less than $1500 it doesn't have to be salvaged. Soooo I get to keep my scooter! Getting a check for $1250, and to repair the turn signals and mirrors to get it road worthy again it'll only be like $200 or so (the $1150 was to replace all the cosmetic damage which was essentially the entire body of the scooter :O).

Which means I'll snag $1000 extra or so, and now I am going shopping for some mods for the car