Car had electrical fire 6-15. Towed to mechanic shop 6/15. Mechanic shop said it’s fixable but had to order item. Went back every week for updates but they said no updates.
2 months later, I said enough is enough . Insurance has to be involved. They deemed it total loss 8/22.
Mechanic invoiced insurance 65 days of storage fees which came out of my payout.
What recourse do i have.
Please help. Anxiety and nervousness is killing me right now from not knowing what to do
Storage fee woes, need advice please
byu/i_love_all inInsurance
Posted by i_love_all
3 Comments
You don’t have any recourse. You should have involved your insurance company right away. You’re responsible for the storage from the time the vehicle was there until the insurance company was notified or declared the vehicle totaled. In order to get possession of the vehicle, the insurance company had to pay that storage. So they paid it for you directly. You can’t just let a car sit for 9 weeks and not call your insurance and then expect them to pay all that storage.
$3,800 divided by ~ 65 days is like $60/day. Not terribly unreasonable as far as storage rates go.
It’s sort of a dick move by the shop to string you along like that and then slap you with a full storage bill. They can waive some or all of it if they want to. You can always go back to the shop and give them the sob story and ask if they can rebate some of it. They may not have known that the insurer was going to jack you out of all the fees. Go ask. Worst that happens is they say no. Also do this *before* they close-out their books for end-of-month. So, like, before the end of this week. Also do this *in person*, not over the phone. It will make it harder for them to say no. If it’s a larger shop and there are other customers present then ask to speak to the manager privately in his/her office.
On the flip side the insurer should have picked up the tab for the days between when you reported it and when they actually picked it up.
You do share some responsibility in this for waiting so long to claim it.
Start a Small Claims court action against the shop.
Bring proof they promised to fix your vehicle once the part came in.
And bring proof (or what you can) that no storage fee’s are mentioned anywhere for their shop.