Total Loss Appraisal, or as many call it, Fair Market Appraisal is what you need when the insurance company declares your car or truck a total loss. Without a Fair Market Appraisal, the insurance company will normally give you an offer way below true market value. This is called Low Balling. You’d be amazed how well this works and saves insurance companies millions, if not billions in claims each year.
the insurance company will normally give you an offer way below true market value
Don’t let it happen to you. Recently I had a client who was rear-ended in his 2000 Mercedes Benz. The insurance company initially offered him $8,000. dollars, what the insurance company’s appraisal firm had concluded on their appraisal. After submitting our report the insurance company gave him a “final” offer of $11,500 dollars and said they could not go over retail book value for the car even though the appraisal said it was valued at $14,500. Our appraisals are designed to help you negotiate by highlighting key points and figures, the client was able to easily point out third party evidence in the appraisal as to why the vehicle was valued at more than retail book value and the client was able to settle for $13,500.
Our appraisals are designed to help you negotiate by highlighting key points and figures
We feel it would be a conflict of interest to prepare hundreds of reports for a company then only prepare one for a consumer. So we made the decision to only work for consumers. I see motive where a company would develop a proprietary methodology that would consistently return lowball appraisals. I find it laughable how large appraisal companies hide behind their, “secret proprietary methodology and formulas” claiming to have a secret sauce, when each time I see their appraisals, they are thousands below market value. Of course, if their secret recipe appraisal didn’t save the insurance company thousands per claim, they would probably find someone with a secret recipe that would.
if their secret recipe appraisal didn’t save the insurance company thousands per claim, they would probably find someone with a secret recipe that would