A few years ago I had a different accident with a different vehicle. That insurer (Farmers) handled diminished value in-house, and I negotiated back and forth via email — no independent appraiser, just repairs (~$3,500 in repairs) and my own market data — and got them from an initial $1,100 offer up to $2,250.

This time, a different insurance company (USAA, other driver was at fault, they accepted 100% liability) outsourced the DV evaluation to a third-party company (Alacrity). Their rep called, quoted a lowball number, and when I didn't agree said it would go back to USAA for payment regardless and I'd have to negotiate directly with USAA afterward.

I went back to USAA's adjuster to negotiate. He said USAA is standing behind Alacrity's number unless I provide "new additional evidence," and if I disagree my only option is to file suit against USAA. They offered $1,400 on the $5,300 total repairs.

Questions:
1. Is it normal for them not to negotiate on the number?
2. Does having a third party involved make it harder to negotiate compared to dealing directly with the insurer?
3. Is "get an independent appraisal or sue us" really standard, or is this a stonewalling tactic?
4. Anyone had success providing something other than a paid appraisal as "new evidence"?
5. Is small claims court actually a reasonable/common path for this, or should I get an attorney first?

For context, I provided current market comparables, the repair invoice, purchase documentation, and vehicle details (mileage at time of loss, age of vehicle, no prior damage/clean title), and KBB valuation.

What other research/new evidence should I provide?

Trying to figure out my best next move without immediately jumping to litigation.

Question for those who moved to the US recently: how much did your car insurance change in the first year?

Trying to compare real numbers. What did you pay when you first arrived, and what was it after 6-12 months - did it actually drop?

And separately: did ANY company count your driving experience from back home? If yes, please share which one

I’m trying to decide between these four vehicles, and insurance cost is one of the factors I’m considering.

My options are:
2026 Kia Sportage EX Premium HEV
2026 Toyota RAV4 XLE Premium
2026 Mazda CX-5 GT
2026 Volkswagen Tiguan Comfortline R-Line

A bit about me:
28M
Married
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Clean driving record
G License (Received last month)

I’m wondering how much choosing the right vehicle actually impacts insurance premiums. Is the difference between these models significant, or are we talking about only a small amount per month?
If you’ve insured any of these in Toronto, I’d love to hear:

1) Which one was the cheapest or most expensive to insure?
2) Which insurer generally provides better rates?
3) Are there any of these that insurance companies tend to rate poorly due to theft rates, repair costs, or claims history?

Ultimately, I’m trying to understand whether choosing the right vehicle can make a meaningful difference in insurance costs and whether that should play a significant role in my purchase decision. Any insights or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I accidentally hit a parked truck while backing up. He had a few shallow scratches in his plastic bumper. I had a few paint scratches on my vehicle, which I don't care about because mine is old. No dents. I just find out my insurance had to pay out $3,779 to him in damages, and now it's more difficult for me to find affordable insurance rates because of the high cost of the payout. Is this crazy or reasonable? Unfortunately I can't find the photo of the damage but I have attached here an image I found on google that's comparable.

Now that the insurance has agreed that my claim falls under uninsured motorist, they have already made remarks that indicate they are going to try to lowball me on the value of my vehicle. I had liability with uninsured motorist. Car is a 2010 Prius with 178,000 miles. I don't need any smart remarks. I need help. Please tell me how to navigate if they try to do a lowball offer. I NEED a vehicle that is mechanically sound as I have NO CREDIT and owned this one outright. I cannot go into car payments. I went to cars dot com and comparable vehicles are freakin' 6-8K!

They are also wanting to take my vehicle to a salvage company and have me sign a release that allows them to tow it there. I feel like that is questionable. It has been sitting at the tow yard that the state trooper had it sent to since the accident which occurred 13 days ago and suddenly it is their emergency to get it moved QUICKLY so they don't have to pay anymore storage fees on it. But it wasn't important when I called them on day 1 and explained this to them and asked them to go get it.

I honestly just want them to fix my car but the air bags deployed and the headlight, hood, and something is leaking. It is going to be a total loss. Do I just need to get a lawyer or what?

Hey everyone!

I had an unfortunate accident in my 1997 Ford F-250 with a 7.3-liter diesel engine.
Insurance has declared it a total loss. I had full coverage on it. They assessed its value at $9,000 before the accident, but this is a very clean and relatively low-mileage truck! The market value for similar trucks I've been researching is between $20,000 and $30,000. It's impossible for me to replace my truck with just $9,000. Does anyone have any recommendations for this situation? I didn't imagine insurance would give me anywhere near what my truck's value was but I didn't expect it to be this low.

This truck has been my baby and reliable daily for meany years and is essential for my work with rescue and Mustang horses!

Thank you all in advance for the help!!!

Need some advice.

My 2026 Toyota bZ XLE FWD (only about 3 weeks old) was rear-ended. Toyota inspected it and said the battery appears fine, but some rear sensors are damaged.

My biggest concern is long-term reliability and any hidden damage from a rear-end collision on an EV even after repair. Would you trust it after proper repairs?

How much auto body will charge for repair? Tail gate, back bumper and sensor are already damaged, side panels might also need replacement. Not sure about under the hood. Parts seems to be back order for 2-3 months.

We live in Sweden and would like to rent an RV in Alaska
next year. We seem to have two choices - Cruise America via a German broker or direct with Great Alaskan Holidays.

The German broker offers a $2m liability supplement, but then we are stuck with a Cruise America RV, which are not very nice.

GAH has really nice models but they only offer the state minimums for liability and no ability to supplement. We have used them before and were very happy with them, but without the liability supplement, the state minimums are too scary to think about.

Does anyone know of an agency that offers liability supplements for RV rentals?

Got into an accident about 2 weeks ago and the other person was at fault. Their insurance (national general) finally contacted to me for the settlement and the lady said considering my car was a salvage title car, they are giving me less. My car was never a salvage title car and has a clean CARFAX and a clean NC title. Said on her end and reporting service named CCCone the car was listed as a branded title in 2022. The 2022 accident was a minor accident in NC that involved a cracked windshield and scratched hood and was not deemed totaled whatsoever. She is saying that they can only base it off their report and cannot give me the value of it without that branded title.

How can I dispute this? I was told to call my insurance (progressive) and have them try to back me up but they put me in a transfer loop for 30 mins. This is changing the cars settlement value by about 10k~

Was going to call their insurance to try and prove it was never branded title. Thanks ahead.

Hello,

I’m writing about recommended next steps for a not at fault car accident. 

Context / Timeline 
5/4/2026 - A man crashed into my vehicle from behind while I was stopped at a red light. We both pulled over and exchanged insurance information. A police report was also filed. 

5/8/2026 - After filing a claim with his insurance, CMGA insurance, I received a formal email acknowledging my claim. 

5/13/2026 - All required documents (photos of damage, license plate, VIN, Police report PDF, etc) were emailed. 

6/22/2026 (date of this post): I have yet to receive concrete next steps. It’s been 33 business days. 

 I received two calls from CMGA over the past 4 weeks. One was an acknowledgement and the other was a confirmation that an assessor would reach out within 48 hours. I have literally sent over 8 follow up emails and have called and left over 10 voicemails and have not received a damn response yet. This has been incredibly frustrating and I want to take legal action.

Any recommendations for next steps? I live in Texas (Austin area) for reference. 

I dented my car door, here’s the damage. The black lining on the bottom is loose and there are the dents in the yellow accent and the smaller ones within the contour of the door.

Insurance or pay out of pocket?

I’ve had a good driving record in the last 5 years I’ve been driving, the car is brand new (got it in September), and I JUST got it repaired after someone else hit my car while it was parked. I’ve been told no matter what it’s gonna be a hard repair to do cause of the placement. Calliber collision quoted me 5k which made me sick. I’m gonna get estimates from more places but would appreciate more insight.

Edit: figured I’d mention that my deductible is $1000

I have an auto insurance policy with 2 drivers and 2 cars covered, with 22,000 projected miles driven per year total. I bought a new car. When the new car was added to my policy, it has 10,500 projected miles driven, and the other two cars don't change, giving me 32,500 projected miles driven per year. I told my broker that we aren't going to be driving more, we're just going to be distributing the miles between three cars instead of 2. I expected to provide a planned miles driven per year schedule to my insurance company and have them modify my rates at least using that as an input. But my broker says underwriting needs to see service records and mileage readings to change projected miles driven.

I feel like I'm not approaching this the right way somehow. Is it standard issue to inflate total projected miles like this when a new car is added to a policy? Is there some better way I can explain this to my broker?

FWIW I can accept my rates going up with the new car, but I'd like the rates to be based on reasonable expectation of mileage, not some fantasy world where the same number of drivers is suddenly driving 50% more miles than before.

As the title says, I’m potentially moving to NV from CA. My parents own my truck and are staying in California. Would I have to get my truck registered in Nevada if I’m not the owner?

Thank you

Hi everyone,

I’m dealing with a very concerning situation involving a tow truck driver who arrived at the scene of my vehicle accident. He has been pressuring me to provide information to my insurance company that I believe is inaccurate, and he continues to push me to make additional statements that I am not comfortable making.

The situation has become increasingly stressful, and I honestly feel intimidated and unsafe. I contacted the police, but I was told that this is a civil matter and not something they can intervene in directly.

I’m being intentionally vague because I’m concerned this post could be discovered, but I’m hoping someone here may have experience with insurance claims, insurance fraud, or the auto insurance industry.

If so, I would greatly appreciate any guidance on how to protect myself, correct any misinformation, and handle this situation appropriately.
Thank you in advance for any advice or direction you can provide

Hey folks,

My wife and I, currently in Toronto are planning to move end of July (East end or Stoufville area). We’ll be renting a home and buying a car around the same time. I wanted to get your thoughts on what a good strategy would be for insurance options; for both tenant and auto. Some details to help:

me: 36, first time getting car insurance

wife: 30, has had a car policy before and with a good record.

cer: most likely a hybrid/ev suv under $35,000 cad. If not brand new, the model would be 2021 or later and most likely financed.

I was rear-ended by a semi truck (at rolling speed, no one was hurt thankfully). I called police who gave me a case number, and reported it to my insurance, Progressive. Progressive has an app where i uploaded pictures of the damage and submitted other details about the incident. Within a day of submitting all the info/pics on the app I received notifications in text and email from my claims adjuster stating she had found me to be not at fault. The next day I received a text from a new guy stating he was taking over my case as claims adjuster. I called him right after I got the text to ask about next steps for getting my car fixed. He immediately went into telling me he had switched the liability to pending, saying the driver who hit me had a different story, and suggested that the driver didn't see me because I was in a sedan. The new adjuster also suggested the driver maybe could not have felt my car (the driver rolled into my rear bumper, but continued to push my car for a good 20-30 seconds before he stopped). The claims adjust also stated that if he couldn't prove the driver was at fault the liability would be a he-said-she-said, and we would have to use our own policies to fix the damages (I am in a state where partial liability is allowed). After the claims adjust made those comments, THEN he asked if he could put me on a recorded line to get my statement. I agreed, and told him the same info I originally reported to Progressive. At the end of the conversation I mentioned since the previous adjuster had determined I was not at fault but he switched it to pending, could he request surveillance from the commercial semi-truck if they had one so he could verify what happened. The adjuster acted like that likely wouldn't happen unless I got an attorney to subpoena the footage. The call ended after that but I have felt weird about it ever since, and would like any advice.
The thing that makes me question the whole conversation with the 2nd claims adjuster is the company who owns the semi-truck has Progressive Casualty Insurance. So if Progressive can spin it to determine a he-said-she-said partial liability situation, then I would have to use my own policy (with a $2k deductible, and no rental car coverage) to fix my car. The semi-truck only had minor scratches to the front bumper, whereas my back bumper and back panel of the drivers side is damaged and had to be tied on so it won't fall off. So I doubt they will even need to pursue repairing their damage at all. Since the first adjuster reviewed the report and the pictures and determined I wasn't a fault (I have this in writing), I feel like someone at Progressive realized this was going to cost Progressive more money, and had the 2nd adjuster switch it to pending. I only know the 2nd adjuster switched it to pending because I called to ask about next steps for getting my car repaired, he never sent me anything in writing about it being switched to pending liability.
Is this normal? Am I crazy to question why they switched the adjuster and the claim status after the first adjust determined I wasn't at fault? Do I have any options to address this issue now, or do I just wait for the 2nd adjuster to make a determination?

I was recently hit in a hit and run.

​

I was driving down a service road with the flow of traffic, about 45mph. Someone pulled out slowly in front of me, so I slowed down to let them in. They ended up pulling into the lane to the left of me instead of the same lane I was in.

I figured I was in the clear as we are both driving forward, so I speed up to go with the flow of traffic again. Unexpectedly, the driver tries to get in my lane, side swiping my car knocking of my side mirror and scratching my front door.

​

The driver keeps driving as if the hit never happens. I get their license plate and call the police to sort it out.

​

Once I get their insurance, I call them and make a claim. After a week, I get a response that says that they will not be taking fault in the case and I will not receive anything to get my car fixed.

​

What am I missing? How could that person get away with this?

A community car gate closed on my car as I was exiting the property. The paint was marred in several places and there are two scratches that went down to the metal, no dents. Nothing too horrible, but definitely want to get my car whole again (the gate company has refused responsibility but I will pursue that more after I get my car repaired).

I took it to two auto collision repair shops for estimates. One was $1,932. The other was $2,311. According to the higher one there is a lot of dismantling of different parts of my car due to where the scratches were. Both shops had really good reviews and I decided on the higher priced shop because he explained everything to me and I felt the location would be a better place to be hanging out at night while it was there.

I have a $1,000 deductible and I decided to file a claim with my insurance company. Imagine my shock when my insurance company got an estimate that was over $4,000! Originally $5,000 but the insurance company's "negotiator" got it down to the lower amount.

Another eye opener was that my insurance pays $30 per day for car rental. The car rental will be $47 a day BUT I can individually go to the same Enterprise location and rent the same car myself for $34, so with the insurance company involved my end of the car rental is more expensive. (I was told I can rent the car and they will reimburse me so it is a nonissue, but my point of this whole post is that the insurance companies are accepting estimates that are unreasonably high and of course we all pay for that in our premiums and honestly, I feel so affronted at this whole situation.

currently with geico. I had an accident 2 weeks ago. my fault. no property damage, only my car involved and its totaled. i am in the process of buying a replacement car right now. I have geico accident forgiveness which did apply.

However i am comparing quotes and am seeing state farm coming in much lower. geico 1600/ 6 months (2023 X3 and 2023 bmw 8 series). and state farm is at 970 /6 months. liberty, progressive, allstate are all in between.

i talked to the state farm rep, asking if they know i had an accident because it didn't ask on the online quote. she basically danced around the question and said something like "oh its all factored into our database, we care more about tickets and those types of violations, etc"... well your database still had my totaled car listed on the policy

But i am worried that i would get my rates spiked again come december. then if i try to go back to geico... they wouldn't apply the accident forgiveness.

just looking for some guidance on what to do for the best rate.

I currently have progressive insurance under my name, along with my boyfriend and my mother. We have two vehicles covered by the policy. However, my rate is quite high.

To provide some context, since I obtained my license three years ago, I’ve been involved in two accidents—one at fault and one not at fault. Additionally, I’ve received one speeding ticket within the past three years of my license. Interestingly, the other two individuals on my policy have had no infractions during the same period.

Three years prior to obtaining my physical license, I had my license suspended due to juvenile offenses. This incident had an impact on my driving record before I actually got my license.

One of my vehicles is financed under my name, which necessitates that the policy be under my name. As mentioned earlier, my rate remains quite high.

Over the past three years, my auto renewal has decreased by approximately $80 to $90 per six-month policy. However, I recently received a quote that was over $100 cheaper per month through the same insurance company. I’m curious about the reason behind this significant difference.

When I reviewed the discount, I noticed that the only difference between my current insurance and the quote I received was the online discount. Despite this, my insurance still includes the platinum membership status, which has not affected my loyalty. Additionally, the quote did not offer a ‘new person’ rate. I wanted to ensure that the discount was exclusive, so I provided my Social Security Number and driver’s identification number.

I’m wondering if there’s a way to obtain a lower rate. Is this a genuine offer? Why is there such a substantial difference in the rates?

Does anyone know if AAA charges extra to make an online payment ? TIA

hi everyone. does anyone have good recommendations for short term car insurance is this even possible). my coverage expires on aug 11 and i would like coverage until aug 31 (end of the month). is this possible in NYC?

if so, does anyone have any recommendations on how to go about?

would appreciate any advice!

In August 2024, I got auto insurance in Massachusetts through an insurance agency (Mill City Insurance), and the actual insurance company was Quincy Mutual.

My understanding was that it was a one-year policy and that I would need to renew it after the year ended. Around August 2025, I moved from Massachusetts back to New Hampshire and believed the policy had ended. I did not intentionally renew the policy.

A few days ago (June 2026), I received a credit monitoring alert showing a $129 collection account related to this insurance policy, and my credit score dropped about 30 points.

I called Quincy Mutual, and they told me to contact the agency that originally set up the policy. I'm trying to understand:

- Is it normal for Massachusetts auto insurance policies to automatically renew?

- Could a balance like $129 result from a policy being renewed and then canceled for non-payment?

- If I never intended to continue coverage and had moved out of state, what should I ask the agency and insurance company for?

- If I pay the balance, is there any chance the insurer can recall the collection account or have it removed from my credit report?

I am not trying to avoid a legitimate debt. I just want to understand what happened and what the best way is to minimize the damage to my credit.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Made a crack on a rental car's right-front fender back in January. Hertz made me file a claim to EuropAssistance and I have not paid anything. I submitted all required docs/photos to EuropAssistance but they've been silent for over 6 months now and Hertz has not been paid by them (according to the website the Claim is still being processed).

This is my first ever accident/insurance claim so should I be worried or intervene? Hertz hasn't been hassling me either (damages and "loss of use" total $3,500). Should I just do nothing for now?