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Old December 3rd 2012, 16:24
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Humble Humble is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
Posts: 758
The best thing you can do is to get a lawyer, insurance companies *hate* lawyers, but it's more likely you'll get fairly compensated. Secondly, if you modify any car, keep every receipt in a folder and track every hour worked on the car if you build it yourself. Time = $$$ and a build log goes suprizingly far in proving time spent. I know your pain all too well, my first race bug was rear ended while I was cruising on the street one night many years ago.

I kept every receipt and prepared a replacement cost analysis to recreate my car using estimated build time and local fabrication labor rates. They offered to total my car and I sent them a bill for it's fair market value which was ten times what they were going to total it for. They laughed at me until I retained a lawyer. They settled and paid for a new race motor, new body work, all professional bodywork repairs. Ever since, I have kept very detailed records of money spent on all of my projects just in case I need to prove the car's worth. Just because you bought it for $2500 doesn't mean that's all the insurance company has to pay you.
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