As we anticipated, they deemed Ethan’s car a “total loss”, unfortunately. We are currently sorting out what this means for us.
Option 1 of course would be to take the money and buy a different car.
Option 2 is to get the car back, take a little bit less money on the payout, and pay out of pocket to fix the car.
Everything is also slightly more complicated because we also have Asher coming up the ranks as a new driver soon (16 in December). Before this happened, we hadn’t even really figured out concrete plans for getting a car for him yet, but the frontrunner plan was that we’d hand Ethan’s current car down to Asher, and then somehow buy a new(er) car for Ethan (who drives way more miles).
(**Given our situation- Ivan working 35+ minutes from home, Ethan’s high school 30 minutes from home and Asher going to a different high school here in town + drastically different work + activity schedules-, we really feel like unfortunately, yes, they’re both going to need cars. No, they can’t share one when they’re 20 miles apart all day. I mean, yes, technically I could keep carting Asher around, but honestly, I really don’t want to do that long term. He needs so.many.rides. I also don’t want him taking my car all the time, because even though I work from home, I seem to still need my car very many days and he is gone a LOT between everything he has going.**)
It’s tricky to know how much it will cost to fix the car/ is it truly fixable?? Insurance of course says no, but that can be debatable.
Ivan “knows a guy” who owns a body shop. (One big perk about my husband (and his Latino League soccer team): he knows “a lot of guys“, especially in various trades.) After looking at the pictures yesterday, the body shop guy thinks yes, it is fixable and not for an obscene amount of money.
SO, if this is indeed true, then we may be able to get the car back, fix it, and then still have a good chunk leftover from the payout that we could then put toward another used car (for when Asher gets his license). This would probably be the ideal case, I think, though there are always unknowns.
We currently have a rental car from the insurance company, but only until Thursday. If they deem your car a total loss, they only cover like, 4-5 days max with the rental! Jeez. That is not a lot of time to sort things out and/or buy a new vehicle…And if we do end up fixing the car, who knows exactly how long that will take. I mean, we could rent a car out of pocket but we’d really rather not long term.
Thankfully it’s summer versus the school year. (Although, Ethan has a daily strength class at school he goes to + work + volunteering, so he does need a car a lot…and it’s hard for me to always lend him mine when Asher needs rides places a lot at overlapping times, too…).
Oh, and we did have to proceed through our own insurance because it seemed like it was going to take FOREVER through the other guy’s. The last we heard, he wasn’t responding to their calls/inquiries to get his story about what happened, so they couldn’t even do anything until they connect with him. 🙄 Per our insurance, our people can get action rolling (as they have) and then it will be the insurance company’s problem to get his insurance to pay them back. (Hopefully!)
They also claim that since it was not Ethan’s fault, it should not impact our insurance rates (and we should get our deductible reimbursed), but… fingers crossed that all holds true.
Anyway, that’s the latest. My big wish is that we can somehow have this all fully resolved by August 13th when Ethan goes back to school, but I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for this new glass pitcher I bought! I have been wanting a fun pitcher to make iced tea in this summer, but didn’t feel very picky about it. So I stopped at Goodwill the other day with Asher and found this one for $5.99. 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 
Ugh such headaches when it comes to cars. My 17 year old totaled the car we let the kids drive (not his fault) and we ended up taking the money (after fighting for more money from the insurance company, which they gave) and I bought a new car for myself and gave him my old minivan to drive. We have 5 cars between our 6 drivers and our insurance bill was $8820 – it’s absolutely insane!
I guess my only advice is to fight for more money. The car that was totaled for us was a 2006 Honda Accord with low mileage, so we got the Honda dealership to give us a quote on it and used that with the insurance company.
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Ooh I did not even know that the money amount was negotiable!!! No idea. I feel like the amount they’re offering is actually higher than what we were “expecting” them to say, based on online searches etc, so maybe we’re okay? But definitely something I will bring up to Ivan/ look into. Thanks! Sorry you’ve had to deal with the same. And ooof 6 drivers to insure!! That’s a LOT!
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If the car is fixable- and a good type of car, I’d say fix it. However, will your insurance company let you insure the car if they deemed it totaled? Used cars are so expensive now! And teen boys cost so much to insure. Even my teen daughter cost a bit. We try leaving our college age kids on our insurance so they have a history of being insured when it’s their time to buy car.
and I think they’re holding my daughter’s accident where she was hit ( and they ran!) Against us. Our insurance is about $8000 for 4 cars that are all old and have tons of miles. We really need to get some quotes for a different company, to see if there’s a better deal out there.
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That’s a good question! It IS a good car- a nice 4 door Honda Accord in otherwise really excellent shape, and we bought it new so have been only owners, full maintenance, etc. That’s why we were really hoping to keep it throughout the boys’ high school years! I will have to double check on that question though. I mean, we were forthcoming and directly asked about if we could just keep the money and fix it ourselves and they never said anything about it being an issue and seemed fine with it, but I definitely need to directly ask!! Thanks for the idea.
I know, insurance is so yucky to deal with!! My husband did all the shopping around when Ethan got his license.. I’m not looking forward to adding yet another teen boy to our policies… ugh.
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We also have cars for each kid– it is way easier. WAY EASIER. When my car was totaled, my insurance moved super fast, and I was able to get a new car almost immediately– but it was easier because I had gap insurance and was totally expecting to have a car payment, etc. It’s trickier for sure with kid cars.
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Ack! I wrote a comment but I don’t think it went through (just mentioning it in case I end up commenting twice.) The whole car things is such a hassle, and so frustrating. If Ivan “knows a guy” then that’s probably your best bet. And I can totally see why you’d want Asher to have a car- both your boys are so busy and it would make life so much easier if you could give up your chauffeur duties.
On another note- I love that pitcher!
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Argh. The car thing is sooo frustrating. Cars are a bit of a necessary evil. They cost so much and constantly need gas/maintenance, but they’re also such a blessing to own because they make life so much easier in many ways (or at least make so many things accessible). Hope it all gets sorted quickly and it’s great that Ivan “knows a guy.”
You know I’m over-the-moon proud of you on your thrifted find 😉
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Oh man, how frustrating! I just went through this experience when my car had to be totaled after it got flooded from a hurricane last year. Thankfully, my insurance worked really fast, even though they were dealing with SO many of the same flooded car issues. I hope you are able to get it fixed up because it does NOT sound ideal to be buying another car when you’re about to have another driver in the family!
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