Mercury Rising

It's not often I find myself with a reason to speak highly of an insurance company. But since my auto accident a couple weeks ago, I have nothing but good to say about Mercury.

When you're in an accident, the first thought after you (hopefully) realize you're not going to the hospital, or worse, is that anything having to do with your car is going to be difficult for the foreseeable future.

I'm still here to tell you, from the moment I reported it to the Mercury claims department, everything became easy. My claims adjustor called me minutes later and explained the entire process. He had a flatbed tow truck to the scene within minutes. My rental car was ready and waiting for me at Enterprise by the time I was done filling out the paperwork at the body shop.

Since my car was totaled, I was concerned how much Mercury was going to give me for it. But they were more than fair with their offer.

I've been with Mercury for many, many years. Their customer service, in my experience, has always been exceptional. More importantly, it's been compassionate and caring. Important traits considering the high stress situations when you need to contact them.

Our family is insurance agnostic. Our auto is with Mercury, our life and homeowners with two others. We'd save money if we bundled all our policies. But while it's nice in theory, in the real world when there's pieces of my car from the freeway to the road where I finally pulled over, a couple hundred in savings doesn't matter.

Having a company like Mercury, that has proven to me I can rely on them, is much more important.

The only unfortunate part of the whole experience is while I was looking for a visual to go with the title of this post, I found this poster for a Bruce Willis movie of the same name.

From the reviews I read, I'm pretty sure you enjoyed this post more.

Totally totaled

There's good news and there's bad news about my car that was plowed into last Wednesday morning on the freeway.

My insurance company said my car was right on the borderline of being totaled, and they gave me the choice of whether to cash out or repair it. I'm going to consider it totaled and cash out. That's the good news. It's also the bad news.

As if I don't have enough things to keep me busy, now I have to add negotiating with the insurance company for a fair price and shopping for a new car to the list. I'm trying to look at the bright side.

My insurance company, Mercury, has been stellar so far in helping me with this claim. Actually, I believe they'll continue to act that way in cashing me out. I believe I'll get fair market value for the car - after all, that's what they do.

I think the issue will be exactly what constitutes fair market value.

There's a formula they use that involves comparing then averaging the price of cars similar to mine to arrive at a payout number. But the numbers I can find may be different (read: higher) than the numbers they find. I'm getting ahead of myself here. I will hope for the best.

What's nice about getting totaled is I'll get more money for the car now than I would if they fixed it and I sold it down the road. This is my moment to get as much as I'll ever be able to for it.

As my friend Pete said, the decision couldn't be more clear. The integrity of the frame was compromised. The body shop would literally have to cut the back third of it off, then re-weld it back on.

And when it comes to integrity, I work in advertising. I'm already compromised enough.

Of course, my car was paid off and I'm not looking forward to car payments. I'm also not looking forward to driving a pre-owned (used) car. The Lexus was my first brand new car in twenty-one years.

First world problems. I know.

So tomorrow begins the frantic online search of Certified Pre-Owned cars, then planning exactly when I'll have time this weekend to test drive the ones I'm interested in.

Just in case you think I've lost my perspective, I haven't.

Considering how severe the hit was, I'm grateful to be around to have to do it all.

The truth will set you free

Free from deductibles that is.

Remember a few posts ago when I was talking about the woman who hit my car, and how she was practicing revisionist history with regard to how the accident happened?

Well yesterday the issue of responsibility for the accident was resolved.

Here's how I think it went down.

The short story is she backed her Chevy Tahoe into the side of my Lexus. Her story was we collided and therefore were both responsible.

Not so fast there missy.

The problem and the beauty of facts is that they are the facts. And people who deal with this kind of situation day in and day out have a finely honed ability to see them clearly.

My field adjustor from Mercury, the field adjustor from her insurance company, my body shop rep and the photos of the damage all tell the same story: she hit me. I'd like to believe that her insurance company, after they stopped laughing at her story, told her the bottom line was that she backed into me in a parking lot, and she wasn't getting out of it.

So when my adjustor called yesterday to tell me the other party had taken responsibility - whether she wanted to or not - I was relieved.

It means I won't have to front the $500 deductible while the insurance companies duke it out. And I won't have the additional stress of worrying about it (not that I couldn't handle it - apparently stress to me is like the bottomless lemonade cup at Islands. Don't get me started).

Oddly enough, this whole incident didn't restore my faith in people.

But, as odd as it feels to say this, it does make me feel ever so slightly better about insurance companies.