Auto Insurance Claims: storage fees and other problems, nassau county ny, proper paperwork

Question
Dear Mr.Hixenbaugh,

I had an accident last February and my car was towed by an autoshop company. I signed papers but I was under distress since I though I was going to die. Nevertheless, I placed the claim to my insurance company and all proper paperwork was done. On several occasions I contacted the shop and asked about the status of the repairs and the owner consistently told me that was all about paperwork. Finally, the insurance company contacted us and told us that they were denied access to the car on several times claiming that they failed to see the car within the first 6 days after the accident. As a matter of fact the shop has 2 locations and as the insurance company statement to us they went to see the car to one of these locations and the car was not there. We do not really know where the car was at that time but common sense tells me if the adjuster went to one location and the car was not there he/she had to be informed where the car was storage. To make this story short the insurance company and the shop kept back and forth with the adjusters going to the shop and the shop owner or representative refusing to show them the car. As per the shop, the car was  a total loss but the insurance company had to verify this condition before issuing a check to us.
We have a letter from the insurance company with the dates of the 6 times that the adjuster was denied access to the car. Meanwhile the autoshop kept increasing the cost of the storage which made the insurance company and us very aware of the game the autoshop was playing. We consulted with several people what to do and, finally one Assistant to the DA in Nassau County, NY, advised us to get the car out from the shop no matter how and lately to file a claim with the small claim court for the extra $ that the insurance company did not want to pay due to the bad practice from the shop resulting in the excessive amount they asked for storage fees. Finally, we did that and the insurance company paid us the car value minus the amount of money they considered excessive ($2.000) as per some regulations.We decided to file the claim against the autoshop and the date is 08/20/08. Interesting enough, now the autoshop filed a counterclaim asking for the same amount of money as "labor". They claim that the insurance company failed to see the car within 6 business days but they not said that they denied access to the adjuster  several times afterwards. We have the documentation from the insurance company from the time they picked up the car after they paid the bill which included costs for labor ($350). We think that the autobody shop took advantage of a situation that was involuntary to us and used a bad practice behavior that is closer to fraud instead of a maybe a mistake from the insurance company to see the car right away for whatever reasons.     
We will appreciate your comments on this matter and please be advised that the money is important to us, however, we feel that the autoshop acted in bad faith and this is the primary reason that we are pursuing this case.   
Thank you very much.

Answer
Hi Monica,

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this.

The counter suit fron the auto shop is just to try to scare you into dropping your suit. Don't do that. These people need to be taught a lesson.

You will need to bring someone from the insurance company to testify on your behalf that they attempted to gain access to your car and that the shop denied that access.

This can be a trickey case. You may want to speak with an attorney befor you go to court. Even if you just pay an attorney for an hour of their time just to get some coaching on the process.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh