Deal folks, I would like to hope your save driving under snowy conditions, and please remember to use 4wd lock & snow mode & snow chain / snow tire / spray chain when the condition seems extreme. I hope your save driving again and best wishes!
My current status is… it’s a second life. Google maps guided me to a rural road which was full of ice and snow to avoid 2h+ traffic and although I was driving 5~15 mph, I slipped on the road and everything happened. Yes I’m alive without notable pain, but my broken gc breaks my heart…
I towed the car to a dealership but haven’t started any conversation with my insurance company, progressive, yet. If you don’t mind I want to get your advices for the following…
Mind asking about how to kickoff the process? would it be just starting a conversation with the insurance company, get the estimate from the repair shop, and let the insurance company do the rest?
Would it be better to total it if possible? any difference in terms of the amount of insurance cost hike?
Do you know how’s the conversation with the lease company (Ally bank in my case) looks like, would it be contacting with them after all the insurance process, and terminate the lease contract without paying the rest of the 3mo lease ?
the images look like this, the car’s underneath also seems to have a significant damage, the tow guy told me there’s break oil leakage
Meaning in your auto policy it will almost always have some requirement that you advise your insurer of any damage to the insured vehicle, wreck circumstances, etc. There might be some additional language that gives them the ability to deny a claim depending on whether and how quickly you tell them, obtained a police report, etc.
Just read your policy very carefully to be aware of any such obligations on your part.
It would be hard for many dealers to give you a full estimate on how much it would cost to repair the vehicle, including the body damage, but they might be able to do that if they have in-house body repair, etc.
If you know that estimate amount before filing a claim, sometimes you might want to self-insure if you can and pay for it yourself so your rates don’t go up, etc. You also have to be careful because sometimes dealers and body shops even if you ask them not to will report things directly to Carfax, insurance databases, etc.
unfortunately the nearest authorized jeep dealership told me that they don’t do collision repair but just maintenance stuff, and introduced me a nearby shop
yeah started a claim process, it seems there’s no other option because the car is severely injured. Appreciate your advice @DailyDriven
Very sorry for your accident but glad to hear the GC absorbed all the damage.
Open a claim with Progressive. If you have rental reimbursement you can start that.
You won’t have any control over whether or not it is totaled, but life may be easier if it’s totaled.
Continue making your lease payments until notified your account is closed. You can notify Ally anytime of the accident, but it may save you a call to wait until you have the first repair estimate.