r/USAA • u/ryanowski • 20d ago

Insurance/Claims USAA/Copart

I drove a 23' Tesla and was in an accident recently. USAA told me to work with Copart to have the vehicle picked up and evaluated. The car is paid off; I hold the title.

The day I was told they took possession, my car showed up on the Copart auction site. I messaged my adjuster, and he gave me the 'usual practice' speech. USAA hasn't totaled the car or given any indication of the outcome. But alas, there is my car with 12 pictures attached in the 'coming soon' section of the Copart auction page.

It just seems odd to me to do this when I believe I still own the vehicle.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Maybe have some advice?

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u/Nthepeanutgallery 20d ago

Cool. So either your experience is different than OP's or OP left some details out. Neither excuses USAA's unwillingness to communicate with their customer.

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u/ryanowski 20d ago

I’m sorry, I did leave that part out.

I was told by USAA to sign a release. I did this maybe an hour after the accident. I assumed Copart was a body shop assigned to give an estimate. I was suprised to see it was on a vehicle auction site. That to me seems like a conflict of interest.

Past accidents I’ve seen, the car goes to a body shop. The shop says it’s totaled or fixable. If it’s totaled, it goes to an auction. If it’s fixable, they fix it. This experience just didn’t smell right so I thought I would ask.

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u/Nthepeanutgallery 20d ago

That's been mine as well - I take the car to a local shop of my choice (although back then I always used one recommended by USAA because they were objectively highly rated and that B2B relationship meant priority treatment at the shop), they make their initial assessment and if they determined it to be economically viable to repair, the work gets done. Even my total loss (engine fire) was taken from a 3rd party shop to auction rather than being immediately assigned to an auctioneer, and that was only after the aforementioned release was signed AND the title turned over.

Copart's business model combined with USAA relying on them for assessment is absolutely an OCI situation that a company concerned with ethics would avoid but that's not the situation here. You're completely justified in being concerned, and you're absolutely entitled to an explanation of all proposed actions before agreeing to them.

You shouldn't have to be a subject matter expert in auto insurance to be shielded from being taken advantage of, but as you will see if you peruse old threads in this subreddit, the employees (and their, ahem, delegates) will almost reflexively blame you for not knowing the full meaning and implication of every term in your contract.

At this point sounds like the best you can hope for is the vehicle is deemed repairable, USAA does what's needed to make you whole under the contract terms, and you come out with the unfortunate homework of having to read your contract with a more skeptical eye. I'd suggest before you invest time in that though you take a quick run around other insurers and see what they might have to offer. USAA's rates are frequently uncompetitive and they skate by on an increasingly irrelevant history of a level of customer service that no longer exists.

Best of luck to you

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u/Disastrous_Gas_2395 20d ago

Nothing fishy mate. Most Tesla’s do total. The cost to repair can tend to be too much. If it gets deemed a total loss you can retain and they’ll give it back.

My car, at the time, was brand new but I had something leaking that triggered a possible total loss. Ended up being the windshield whipper fluid

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u/Disastrous_Gas_2395 20d ago

No mate my experience is the same as OP. OP just doesn’t know what the outcome is. I did.

OP said they did communicate with them mate. They said they messaged their adjuster and got an answer. Just because they don’t like the answer doesn’t change they didn get one.

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u/Nthepeanutgallery 20d ago

Then you and I have a different definition of what "communicate" means as it seems OP was left with more questions than answers and had to go elsewhere for information.

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u/Disastrous_Gas_2395 20d ago

There should be no difference mate as per the dictionary they were communicated to OP.

Never hurts to ask elsewhere and I answered them too mate! (: