CARSTAR Edmonton Mayfield

Good day,

Since our last communication I was made aware of more information that needs to be shared.

The time line of events helps understand our position, our responsibility and our challenges to satisfy this customer.

Our Position is we are the eyes and ears for many Insurance companies. Our responsibility is to record the damage and the costs to bring back the vehicle to "pre-accident" condition. Some of our challenges are that the insurance companies set out rules inside their insurance policies that most consumers do not read or understand. In the event of an accident the insured has the option to go to a "preferred partner" such as us or have the repairs completed elsewhere. If they chose elsewhere, the insurance company will send out a travelling appraiser to write the estimate as best as he can at the customer place of work or residence. The customer can take the estimate written by the insurance appraiser to any body shop and get it fixed using the estimate as a guideline. If they chose to go to a "preferred partner" the customer advises the insurance company, the insurance sends the body shop an "assignment" . This is the electronic file for the claim. Once we get the assignment we contact the customer to come in for the appraisal. We are required to estimate the damage that will bring the vehicle back to pre-accident condition. This is a preliminary estimate as there is high probability of hidden damage found during the repair process, additional broken parts and part price changes. Once the estimate is complete we are required to send the information including pictures and preliminary estimate to the insurance company so they can determine if it is financially feasible to fix. They look at many factors.. mileage, options, maintenance records, market value etc are all considered. if the vehicle is considered repairable, we are notified to go ahead with repairs. If the vehicle is considered a "total loss" we receive notification in the electronic file and we have done all we can do.

In this case, I was told that the insurance company sent out a traveling appraiser and wrote the estimate... I did not see this estimate but I was told it was high enough that the vehicle was written off. From what I gather, the customer did not like this and wanted to get another opinion. This scenario does happen often as the customer believes their vehicle is worth more than the Insurance company offers. So, when we received the assignment at Mayfield, we treated as any other assignment.... we took pics and wrote the estimate keeping in mind that we need to bring it back to pre-accident condition. We are required to send this to the insurance company... it is not the customers decision to make. Again, the vehicle was determine to be a total loss. with out knowing, the customer went to another *** store and influenced the appraiser by advising that she didn't want the vehicle to be a total loss and the the running board is not needed to be replaced even though it was damaged. The appraiser discussed repair options with a technician and came to the conclusion that some parts could be repaired even though the best choice would be to replace.....resulting in a slightly lower estimate. the running board was almost $1000 alone, there were several door moldings that were not added as they were not damaged but from experience we know that the clips break when removing.. resulting in the estimate being lowered by a couple of thousand dollars. So, the difference between estimates are the higher one has all the damage accounted for and repaired to factory specs and pre-accident condition and the other one was with the purpose to repair below the total loss threshold....and satisfy the customer. ***. If the customer was more open with us we could have explained this to her at the store as this is not an uncommon occurrence. feel free to let me know if this satisfy's Revdex.com.