My mom and I have been loyal allstate customers since 1993. We never had an accident. Last year we got into an accident. My mom’s car was "totaled ". The allstate claims department told me the car was a total loss. They paid us the Kelly blue book value. We signed over the tile of the car to Allstate and they told us it would be auctioned off. The car only had a little over 30,000 miles on it. I went to Copart the auction company’s website to see the car because I never got to see the damage to it. I was injured and taken away by ambulance. The action company applied for a “salvage rebuildable title”. That’s how the car’s tile was presented for the action. So in other words the car was rebuildable but it would probably cost more to repair it than it was worth so they just gave us the blue book value. Had I known there was a possibility it could have been repaired, I would have fought for it to be fixed because for the money they gave us we could never find another car like the one we had. That always bothered me.
Anyway I decided to look for another car. I found one on Craigslist, it was an old car but it looked nice so before I contacted the seller I decided to call Allstate. We were with them for so long and there’s a real nice lady there who we used to talk to all the time when we called to pay our bill plus they already had all our info so i just wanted to get an idea of a price for insurance .She said she would get me a quote. She said she tried to get a quote but the computer wouldn’t give me one because I had a “lapse in coverage” . I didn’t have any insurance since the accident. She said she knows we didn’t have insurance because we didn’t have a car but Allstate still sees that as a “lapse in coverage” and wouldn’t take us back until we have insurance from another company. Can you seriously believe this? How can we have a lapse in coverage if we don’t have a car? We had no insurance because we had no car. I’m still thinking of getting the older Jaguar but it’s a 1997 with 135,000 miles what is everyone’s thoughts on this kind of car?
Blue book value should not have been accepted in the current market, since prices are inflated and you’re entitled to what it costs you to replace your vehicle with one in similar condition.
It’s how the insurancy industry works in the US at least. I am currently penalized because I choose to not use a credit card. They either think I’m too irresponsible to have a credit card and therefore high risk, or that I am more responsible and they can squeeze more money out of me. I guess their system thinks that you’re somehow irresponsible because you were not on an insurance policy for a while. Perhaps people who are financially irresponsible often stop driving for periods of time, or they just drop coverage and keep driving uninsured. Maybe they think that people who stop paying insurance on a totaled vehicle are responsible and more money can be squeezed out of them. Maybe people who have alcohol problems stop driving and drop coverage. Maybe their system just shows a correlation between dropping coverage and higher accidents.
Stay away from a high mile, 25 year old Jaguar unless it is just a hobby car and you are wealthy. It will wreck you financially.
As for insurance…there are lots of companies out there. Find another one. Allstate clearly does not want your business.
It will ultimately cost you every dollar you have.
ok thank you for letting me know i will pass on it.
ok thanks i will pass on it
It seems that you found a good car in May but felt 93,000 miles were too much?
Do you know if the car was purchased by a salvage yard or a rebuilder? That car could have been worth $750 to a salvage yard for the powertrain parts. That value would be subtracted from the settlement if you kept the car. If the repair cost were $10,000, that would be on you.
Proof of coverage can be addressed by comparing your checkbook payments to your policy payment requirements.
Depending on the engine, a 1997 Jaguar may have been a victim of the Nikasil fiasco so additional research/testing is necessary but I doubt that any 25 year old car, much less a Jag, would qualify as a reliable economical daily drver…
What are you talking about ? I have no idea why you would be penalized because you don’t use a credit card .
There has to be more to this story . The insurance policy is on the vehicle . Vehicle is gone so there is not a policy to make payments on .
Some auto insurance companies ( like the one I worked for) based policy costs and the decision of whether to write a policy on credit reports and scores. If you don’t have a history of using credit, your credit score will be poor.
Since the Snowman seems to know everything why does he not just use a card and pay it off every month to improve his FICO . As I have said before why someone does not take advantage of the cash back cards is beyond me.
Don’t know anyone with 850 score.
All else aside, “old Jaguar” is just code for RUN,RUN like hell and never look back.
Nor do I, but my score is 829, and a friend has an 835 score. I don’t think that either of us would be deprived of preferential financing rates with our scores.
I’ve never paid much attention to credit score until the credit union software started to include it. So when I log in, I also see the score. I don’t use cards except maybe for a large purchase or travel but my wife likes to generate air miles. So depending on what she has charged and paid over the month, it will go up and down 2-4 points. I just laugh. They have no idea of net worth. Just a joke. Like I said, in high school we visited the county credit office. The had a file on everyone and would clip articles from the paper if your name came up. Far more reliable for issuing credit.
My bil bought a jag a few years ago. Don’t know what but essentially a ford. One trip he had at check engine light. A year later he still had it and said three guys had tried to fix it but couldn’t.
I think my boss hired those three guys. During the last 5 years in this shop, 1 out of 5 new hires have adequate skills.
True, i’m thinking something isn’t right with what she told me. She said she understands we didn’t have a car but Alstate still sees it as lapse of coverage. This is very frustrating but i guess i don’t see a reason to argue with her about it. It could be they just don’t want us back because we had a accident and she’s making excuses.
That car was over 5,000 thousand dollars for that much money the miles were to high for me. This car is 1999 and they may be will to take less
How are you going to test drive a vehicle without insurance ? Is someone that has insurance going to go with you and drive ? If not then you need to look into Liability Insurance for Non Vehicles owners .