Auto Insurance Claims: DUI accident, mechanical issues, other vehicles

Question
Hello,
I was wondering if you can help me. My car was hit by a drunk driver while it was parked in front of my house. A total of 5 vehicles where involved. The driver rear ended an SUV and the SUV smashed into a scooter and the scooter got smashed into my car and my car bumped into the car in front of me. I got an estimate just for the body work of my car (mechanical issues not included) which came out to be almost three thousand dollars. The insurance company ran the "value" of my vehicle based on similar vehicles in my area and told me that it's worth seventeen hundred dollars. Their settlement is either I take seventeen hundred and keep the car or they'll give me two thousand and I have to give up the vehicle. I found out that if I did repairs on my car in the past half a year, then the insurance is supposed to reimburse me for that also. I sent them some receipts for repairs that were done on my car recently (transmision and starter) totaling almost fifteen hundred dollars. At first they started saying that regular maintenance repairs don't count. When I told them that it had nothing to do with maintenance they added a hundred to the two thousand that they were alrady offering me saying that they reran everything and thats what my car is worth. Today I received a detailed letter of how my car was evaluated. Half of the things that are described in there are complete crap. Their "typical" vehicle is supposed to have cracks and holes almost everywhere. My car is no where near that condition. It has no rust or holes or cracks anywhere. I've been arguing with them for almost 3 months now and I'm running out of ideas of how to deal with them. Please Help.  

Answer
Hi Elena,

You should search on www.autotrader.com for other vehicles like yours that are for sale. If the prices are higher that the insurance company's offer you can print it out to submit to the insurance company to try to negotiate a better price for your car. If that does not work you will have to hire a professional vehicle appraiser to inspect your car and complete an appraisal. This will generally cost around $250.00. Another possibility would be to file a law suit againt the at fault person. However you would have to have your research on car prices to show the judge. If the judge feels your information is better that the insurance company you may win.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh