Do you know how to prove diminished value? The basis of the diminished value insurance claim is the duty of the insurance carrier to restore the owner of a damaged vehicle to the same position they were in before the accident. If your beautiful late model car sustained structural damage, or was repaired with cheap foreign parts, your car will likely not have the same value in the marketplace as it did before the auto accident.
Why is that? Well, consider your own reactions if you were shopping for an expensive vehicle and one of the alternate choices on the lot had no prior accidents, but the other choice had sustained substantial damage involving structural members or had replacement of important parts from an uncertified source somewhere overseas.
Surely you would never value those two vehicles the same. Same thing for any potential buyer who simply checks the Internet with any of the several growing car-history services; they’re not going to be willing to pay as much for it as they would have before it was hit-irrespective of how well it’s been repaired.
The difference in the market value between the two vehicles is the diminished value suffered by the vehicle that was damaged. Thus, in order to restore the owner to where she was before the accident, the insurance company should be made to pay her the diminished value in cash in addition to repairing her vehicle.
When someone hits your late model car and causes substantial damage, you should plan to make a diminished value insurance claim. Remember that in order to succeed, it will be your burden of proof to show that there is a difference in value between similar vehicles with a clean history, as opposed to your vehicle that was in an auto accident. YOU must gather all the facts and professional opinions necessary in proving that your vehicle has a measurable difference in value because of the accident.
