Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Your car is totaled, but the insurance company is still charging you for repairs by the body shop and the company wants to give you less than your car was worth. What's The Real Deal?
Jan Schriver’s Oldsmobile, for example, was hit by a snow plow in February and he took the car to Nick Orso’s in Syracuse for repairs.
The damage added up to nearly as much as the car’s worth, so his insurance company scrapped the vehicle. The company was charged more than $1,000 by the body shop and Schriver wants to know why, since the charges cut into the sum he was paid by his insurance company.
According to Mike Orso, the charges can come from a host of services provided to the customer. For example, his company sometimes picks up a car from a tow lot and has to fork over hundreds of dollars in towing charges. There are storage fees for the days when the car is sitting idle, waiting on inspections or decisions from an insurance agency and other times there are labor charges associated with tearing down the vehicle just to get a closer look at the damage.
“We take the car apart. At that point in time, sometimes more damage is discovered….further services are needed to correct the damage on the car, at which time we contact the insurance company and bring them back in,” Orso said.
In Schriver’s case, the bulk of the cost came from work that had been authorized early on, before the insurance agency changed its mind.
If there’s something you want to know The Real Deal about, call (315) 446-9900 or email YourStories@9wsyr.com.
