Auto Insurance Claims: State Farm Wont Reimburse For Repair, jeep grand cherokee, comparable vehicle

Question
I bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee last month. Three weeks later, it gets totaled in an accident. Within those three weeks, I had one of the Front Power Door Lock Actuators replaced. I believe that I should be reimbursed for the repairs that I made because, in addition to the repair obviously being recent, it affected whether or not I would be able to get into my car (if I had accidentally locked it the wrong way). However, State Farm is trying to pass this expense off as "maintenance". How would I go about getting reimbursed for this repair?

Answer
Daniel,

I understand your position however; insurers and the law generally do see such maintenance and repairs as necessary to merely maintain the functionality of the vehicle. Conversely, items in disrepair may cause for lessening the pre-loss value of the vehicle and resulting in a lower total loss/replacement valuation.

The only advantage to you is maintaining the vehicle enables the vehicle have the value of a vehicle in good or excellent rather than average, below average or poor due to being in ‘disrepair’. The same would go for recent mechanical repair, new tires, recent paint and cosmetic work etc. These are items that would improve the condition and thus the value of the vehicle but would likely not call for reimbursement of such investment specifically.
In addition to the vehicle’s pre-loss retail value (what you could buy a comparable vehicle for before the loss) you may be entitled to state sales tax and/or vehicle registration/title transfer costs.

More importantly is to verify to ensure the insurer offers enough to enable you to replace the vehicle with one of “like kind and quality”. Insurers often offer less than the actual amount required to replace a vehicle and often use outside sources (e.g. CCC Value-scope etc.) to determine the pre-loss value. These reports can often be rife with errors and miss-comparisons of other sample vehicles, their locations, options etc. and their asking and selling prices.

This is a whole other issue. For more information on these issues and other important information regard total losses, I invite you to visit our website @ www.AutoDamageExperts.com or call us for more information on how you can protect your rights for proper indemnification.

Thank you for your questions and best wishes, I hope this has been of some assistance to you.

Barrett