What You Need to Know About Recovering Loss of Car Value After Crash

If you’ve been in an accident you likely went through an insurance company to get your vehicle repaired, but what about recovering the loss of value in your car?

You may be passing up thousands of dollars simply because you didn’t know it was available to you.

It’s one of the biggest mistakes a driver makes. Your car was hit by another vehicle, their insurance company sends it to a body shop for repairs, you get it back and it’s in tip top shape, right? Wrong.

“Whether it was put back to factory specs with factory parts or was used with aftermarket parts and done by an unqualified repair, it’s still going to show up on the Carfax and it’s still going to take a hit on the car,” said Tony Cavallaro with Airport Road Auto Body.

Even though that accident wasn’t your fault, it’s now on your vehicle’s Carfax report and will prevent future dealers from giving you the value for what you think your car is worth.

“A lot of times they will reduce the price by I’ve seen anywhere from 10 percent all the way up to 35 percent,” said Matthew Forrest with Forrest Law in Hartford.

Matthew Forrest is a local attorney who fights to get consumers cash for the value they lost on their vehicle. It’s all part of a law that many people have never even heard of. It does vary from state to state.

“If you have a vehicle that’s worth a certain amount of money before an accident and you get your car repaired very well, but you get it back and its worth less, you’re entitled to the difference between the value before the accident and the value after the repair,” said Forrest.

For example, if your car is worth $30,000 before someone rear ends you, you’re looking at about a 10 percent loss in value. If you take that at-fault driver’s insurance company to court you could get $3,000 back in diminished value.

If you hire an attorney, they don’t get paid unless you win the case. You can choose to file the claim without an attorney, but we’re told it can be a grueling process.

Keep in mind you have two years from the time of the accident, to file the claim.