Also, why didn’t they have the car properly insured? If you can’t afford to replace the car, it needs proper full collision coverage. Especially if being driven by people other than the owner so that the owner can be made whole in case of an incident. Cheaper to keep full collision coverage than replace a car. Was Alana even a driver on the policy?
Edits for terminology
Thinking more- it honestly sounds like maybe they only had basic PIP and the lowest collision insurance possible maybe even no UM depending on the laws of where they are. Risky choices for anyone
It sounds like they saved up to pay cash, prob no gap insurance option
I would guess they took the vehicle replacement money and used it to cover medical costs related to the wreck.
Op, yta. And you are really bold to assume family therapy would push your oldest daughter into behaving normally after what was taken from her.
THAT'S what I want to know. OP says they had almost enough for a replacement, and then mentions medical bills. If they had most enough from insurance, surely they could have bought Casey a slightly cheaper car? That would be better than nothing, but it seems like OP is far too comfortable making Casey sacrifice for her family.
Imo all the insurance money for the payout for the vehicle alone should have went back to the daughter who bought the car so she knew what she had to work with when considering a different vehicle. Had this happened , she may not be acting how she is..
Absolutely! It seems they ignored the fact that car insurance is to replace the car and health insurance is to cover medical costs. OP is definitely YTA
They didn't ignore. The medical bills are their responsibility because the girl is a minor. They selected minimal coverage and got hit with a hefty bill. Then they (more than likely) took the money that was paid out for the car to cover their responsibilities and said they'd replace it when they could.
What makes me think OP is an ah from another realm is how he thinks the oldest daughter shouldn't be upset about it or acting out at all. The girl just got robbed by her parents and they're trying to force her to be agreeable about it.
Don't most car insurance policies have a certain amount of property damage/ medical coverage? If I'm not mistaken, I totaled my car when I was 16 (although this is literally 20 years ago now). My sister got glass in her head when the windows shattered and went in an ambulance to get stitches. I felt horrible that she got hurt, but I remember being so worried my mom was going to be mad at me about the money because my mom was a penny pincher (We weren't broke, my mom was an accountant and didn't like to spend) and I specifically remember her saying insurance covered the ambulance/ medical. I always assumed it was the car insurance? Anyway, these people must have some terrible insurance coverage...
Health insurance won't cover medical bills from a car accident. If there was lasting damages, maybe depends on your insurance.. Car insurance will cover bills from a wreck or it's out of pocket.
This may be a state-by-state thing, but if I break my arm, whether it’s in a car accident or playing football, my health insurance will cover it. They may want to go after the other party if it was an accident, but I’m still covered.
If you're the driver. And it's your fault. And your insurance covered the max amount allowed already, you would be liable for any costs left uncovered.
You health care could temporarily cover it but you'll owe the money back if you're the one at fault for the collision and it's your vehicle insurance that already paid the max out.
In their case the insurance would go after them. They choose the coverage for the driver and made it low to have low payments. This was the cost of selecting to be undercovered.
In Florida you have to bill your auto insurance first then the other parties once to max out the auto insurance you get a letter to say it is maxed out and you can then bill the health insurance company
lol. Here’s hoping you never get sick or injured. You find out real fast that almost NO ONE has adequate health insurance because there is no such thing for most people.
Ruptured my Achilles last year and couldn’t walk for months. It cost about $3000 out of pocket, but would have been $15k+ without insurance. I use to live in Europe and know how fucked U.S. health insurance is, but having to use the insurance money from the car to pay for injuries seems like a massive failure in proper coverage by the parents.
And how much did that level of insurance cost you? Or are you very fortunate and have great employer covered insurance?
Because I am fortunate enough to have that through my husband's work.
Before that, crap insurance would have cost my family 500 a month we simply didn't have. Much less the 1000+ a month for fair to middling insurance, or the 1500+ for actual good insurance.
I just can't find it in me to blame someone for being underinsuted medical wise in the US.
The car insurance? Absolutely a failure. But not the medical insurance, being that for the average person it is extremely prohibitively expensive.
How can u not have adequate health insurance these days? And this also means the accident was her fault right? Or the other party’s insurance would be paying out? But can’t everyone get Obama care or something? I’m in California and dad makes it sound like she is soooo severe poor her, she should be getting disability payments and medi-cal. My brother gets it and he is high functioning. Not severe at all. Dad is enabling the adhd dr and when they are gone, who’s going to help her? Not sister because she wrecked her car ! Good job dad ,
No, not everyone is entitled to ACA coverage. Several states still have not taken the Medicaid expansion, which means that the only way you're getting on Medicaid is to be a parent or be disabled. For low-cost insurance, those states also usually have ridiculously low cutoffs (last I checked I think my state is still like $14k/yr for a single person) to get anything through the Marketplace, and then it's still gonna be like $200/month plus high deductibles. It's ridiculous.
Dad could also be playing up the severity, and if that's the case SSDI would be an instant denial. Not to mention that any disability claims are very fucking hard to successfully get.
My brother has been getting SSDI for over 15 years and he is high functioning. He actually has a driving job getting paid cash under the table, where his deliveries pay in cash. Previous to this job he worked at a Dealership doing oil changes. He has purchased 2 brand new vehicles with dad as co-signer of course bc he doesn’t have much credit, but he has made all his payments on time and paid them both off, and he is also in a sporting club and travels with them for weekend competitions out of town with no supervision. He can book and do the whole hotel thing all on his own. He does not take medication.
Oh absolutely. My dad’s a big loser and will do anything for money . He’s always been like that so of course he was trying for years to get him approved. He doesn’t get the full amount but almost $700, but still so shady.
“Adequate” is a subjective term here. Both types of insurance plans have a wide range of “adequate” offerings that leave their customers with a wide range of residual responsibilities, yet they’re all considered sufficient by many.
Having insurance that pays YOU to use it is a rich person situation.
I don’t think they thought it would fix her. It was an opportunity for her to speak in a mediated environment, and if she wasn’t entirely explaining prior to that, then it at least opens that line, even if it was just to receive more details.
The mediator should tell the op that if one of his kids saves up to buy a vehicle, that vehicle is for the kid who saved and paid for it. They shouldn't harass the responsible one to allow the ADHD kid to drive her car. And when the insurance pays out for the totalled car, the money should go back to the cars purchaser, not to the medical bills op is responsible for.
Taking your children to a mediated session includes being able to hear what he didn't want to hear. He should have made a payment plan for those bills and not taken from his oldest child to cover an expense his child made that he was responsible for. But he did and then tried to have a therapist coax the angry child into being more agreeable after having her vehicle totaled and the insurance money taken to cover bills he was responsible for.
I didn’t read op as saying they used the insurance payout to pay bills. I read that it wasn’t enough to buy a new car and they couldn’t help her because of the medical bills they had to pay. 🤷🏼♀️
Where are you getting that they used the insurance money to cover medical bills?! I get we're only getting one side of the story, but this is just making stuff up
When medical bills get covered and cars don't get replaced... I didn't make anything up. I just told what op wouldn't because if he said it everyone would be calling him the outright ahole
he says the insurance wasn't enough to replace the car AND cover the medical costs, it's safe to assume they used some of the insurance money for the medical bills, depending on the coverage, out of pockets and copays
If what you guess is what happened, I’m not sure therapy can fix that amount of scumbag in a person. OP and their spouse are going to end up in the shittiest nursing home ever if that’s how they treat their kid.
There's a cap on that if you select minimal coverage. She broke an arm and leg and it was probably an er visit with an ambulance involved. Those are pricy.
If that exceeds the amount the insurance will payout because of the amount of coverage you selected, they would be liable for any leftover medical costs.
The car would get a set amount depending on its blue book value.
Op hasn't been back to tell us what that amount was and if they spent it or gave it back to the totalled cars owner.. if Casey is acting like this, I'd bet they never gave her anything back from the insurance payout and just said they'd replace it. And they won't for nearly a year (because they spent the money.)
(This is why you always opt for decent coverage instead of bare minimum coverage for your vehicle insurance.)
You’re right. I worked for a State Farm agent right after college. He refused to sell low, inadequate coverage. He believed he had a fiduciary duty to his clients and said if they were underinsured, they could come back and sue him if they didn’t have sufficient coverage after an accident. I don’t know if that was really a legitimate concern, but I definitely learned the value of being well insured.
She is, but why is OP dragging her into family therapy to try to force her to be more agreeable and less irritable with her sister and parents.
Makes him a ahole from another realm to think her behavior needs therapy after what they'll pulled.
Dude needs therapy to learn how to take accountability for his self.
The family therapy part struck me as funny. If they are in the US, unless they have really good insurance (and given the other comment about medical bills I assume not) the cost of those therapy sessions would cover a monthly payment on a starter car. Like OP doesn't mind spending the money, he just doesn't want to spend it on her.
They took money slated to recoup Casey's losses and paid their own bills with it. They stole from Casey. It wasn't their money that bought the car, it was hers and they took that reimbursement money she worked for and kept it.
Definitely. Personal injury payout is separate from the car damage payout and the car damage payout would cover the value of the car if properly insured. Because she’s a minor, they got the check. I hope Casey moves out of state and never speaks to them again. Also, she should sue them because they are responsible for their minor child behavior and the damage she caused
As a older sister I would not care for a car my sister come first. Didn't the parents say thay would give back the money for the car I can't wait the people in the comments I would be just happened my sibling come out the crash safety . I know the the sister work for the car but I would understand my parents situation.
How did Alana take Drivers Ed, pass the test, and get her license if her ADHD is so crippling? OP is only telling part of the story of his favoritism for Alana.
He's using her ADHD as an excuse. How does he expect Alana to function in life, dealing with her ADHD, if he is covering for her so much. That can hurt her in the long run. (I have it too, so it can make things more difficult but it does not have to be disabling)
I have severe ADHD and I work. It actually helps to have something to do. Being a cashier at a grocery store helps a bunch. Gotta manage checking out while talking to customers etc. You got so much going on that it's easy to focus.
That’s what I was thinking. My ADHD nephew did much better when he had a lot of activities. Kept him busy and forced him to be organized. PS love your name - it’s also my daughter’s.
Right! I have ADHD, too. When I was younger, I stayed busy on purpose bc the minute that I would get bored, I would do something dumb and get myself into a whirlwind of trouble. So, I adapted and filled up all of my time with college, studying, work, volunteer work, sports, family activities, etc. As a child, it wasn't so bad to get into trouble, but as an adult, I learned quickly that my butt ended up in jail. So, yeah, someone with ADHD can do better with multiple things going on.
It actually can work that way. One major factor in ADHD is having low dopamine, if I keep busy and complete tasks it gives me dopamine and I am able to focus better and get things done. That's why for some of us if it is an area of intrest we can literally focus on one thing for hours and not even notice because that thing is giving us dopamine.
I mean, I also have ADHD, and I can honestly say that if I was forced to work while I was in high school, I'm not sure if I would've graduated (or at least maybe not on time.) So I can kinda see OP's point on that part. But I do think there's probably more to the story, like I doubt Casey actually wanted to let Alana drive her car.
I was forced to work at 16 while in school, yeah grades are going to suffer, but also in the grand scheme of things, if her ADHD is as dibilitating as her dad is making it out to be, college ain't for her.
Same. My grades were always better when I was working than when I wasn’t. I stopped working for a while because my parents thought it might help me get my mediocre grades up, but it had the opposite effect. Now as an adult if I don’t have some pressure and deadlines I can’t get anything done.
Same here!! I hate the stress of pressure and deadlines but it gets me moving. I have no time awareness so I'm really working hard on managing that as well. 🕑
Same. I’m in school for nursing bc my adhd is actually worse when I’m not working an extremely chaotic job. I’m at an office job right now and I’m a mess
Yep, same here. I even have dyslexia, and my sister was a straight a student and a lawyer now but I was always better with money and had the nicer car. My sister (the lawyer) crashed her first car within a month and then she bought her second car gotten into 2 minor crashes with in 3 month , after that my father insurance went up about $300 because of all of her fender bender so she had to start paying her own insurance.
Yeah adhd affects everyone differently but there are many available effective treatments. Some are hard to get currently but others are still available. Personally I love driving as it makes me less car sick than when others drive so my ADHD didn’t affect it too bad but if it does for others then they need appropriate precautions and treatments.
People with adhd are at far higher risks for injury an accidents from many sources for a reason and it’s one of the many reasons why proper education and treatment is so important.
Exactly. My adhd is severe. Just took the QB test for the first time at 42. It’s was the 99%. Best thing you can do is stay busy. Learn to juggle multiple things.
OP is an asshole. Screwing the kid long term. Best thing my parents did for me is insist on sports despite my anxiety. I ended up excelling to a fairly high level. The main take away as I became an adult was that I learned discipline and how to continuously improve.
I left out that I still struggle with substances. It’s not out of control but always a damn struggle. If I am going to drink I will only bring home two or maybe 3 drinks max. ADHD means we are dopamine deficient. So it’s like there is this hole or void that you constantly feel compelled to fill.
I also have ADHD and Dyslexia. They’re not easy conditions to deal with, but despite these conditions, I managed to go to college and graduate in 4 years. After college I went to law school and am licensed in the State of California. I’ve sat as a temporary judge, and tried hundreds of cases. No one knew I had ADHD & Dyslexia because at a young age I forced myself to focus and be very disciplined. I was tested in law school after a professor noticed something “funny” about my writing and arguing. 3 days of tests and evaluations and this was confirmed. From there, I learned and gained tools to make life easier.
My point is not to brag and say I’m so great and wonderful. It’s to say that despite these diagnoses, it IS possible to do difficult things. The sister needs to work part time and make up the difference for ruining the car.
But, being a cashier at a grocery store doesn't necessarily help someone focus on their schoolwork, if it's taking time away from it.
Money doesn't grow on trees, and you can't just break up w your family. The kid has a right to be mad, but it's not cool for them to just stonewall their family. NTA, OP. Just a shite situation.
Devils advocate, I don’t disagree with OP about a teenager with severe ADHD only focusing on school. I never could have held a job and managed schoolwork as well, however I’m perfectly capable at managing my workload outside of school.
However it’s definitely telling that OP isn’t okay with Alana having a job but was perfectly fine with her behind the wheel of a car.
Exactly, OP is making it sound like crashing cars is a regular occurrence for people that have ADHD. He’s not only neglecting one daughter, but hes holding the other back by basically infantalizing her. I have ADHD and worked throughout high school, it wasn’t easy, but if my parents treated me like that, it would have been 10x harder
My SIL has super bad ADHD. And while she holds down a job and lives a relatively normal life, she doesn't drive because she knows how dangerous it is for her to do so (she's tried many times over the years as her pills change and whatnot) and either gets rides or uses public transportation or even walks (a lot). You know, like a responsible adult.
Exactly, Alana will have to learn how to cope at some point in life, and learning to deal with consequences is not a bad thing. It’s unfortunate OP is less reliable and responsible than their 17yo daughter.
I agree. I also have ADHD and had to make it work with my obligations. For me that means medication, therapy, and practicing extra mindfulness so I don’t constantly make my problems, everyone else’s problems. If my parents had used it as a crutch, or let me use it as a crutch, it would have held me back. I think OP is doing a huge disservice to his daughter by treating her as if she couldn’t possibly be capable of handling herself because of her ADHD.
permanently harm her sister’s future to get her a car earlier.
What future? She has crippling ADHD and can't focus in high-school. She'll get diploma for graduating. Does this diploma also release a cure that helps Alana magically stay on track?
No. She has a lot to work on with the help of therapy, medication and most importantly- responsibility. Alana needs to be responsible for a part time job or volunteer work. Socialize, learn some skill, something that doesn't involve her parents coddling her or a classroom setting where she's having a tough time focusing.
College won't be pretty and it's harder to hold her hand, even if she went to a local school /community college.
Okay, no. As someone with ADHD, she absolutely can work, but she shouldn't while going to high school and maybe 1st two years of college. High school has so much busy work. And a lot of it is expected to be done independently. It's ADHD hell. Despite understanding almost everything I was taught in high school, I almost didn't graduate.
I did much better in college, especially the last two years.
I think it's part of an overall need to control everything while pretending to be concerned and caring. I was one of these adhd kids with a parent who wanted to micromanage my life in a certain specific direction even as I was well into adulthood, basically telling me in such loving terms how I'm too incompetent to handle things myself because of my condition.
Letting a teenager with ADHD get a drivers license can often be an absolute nightmare. Signed, a mother of a child with ADHD who got into three rollover accidents within two years (he’s an adult, I couldn’t stop him from getting his drivers license when he turned 18 but I wish I could have). Thankfully no one but him got injured in any of the accidents.
A lot of parents worry a job in highschool will hurt their children's grades, especially one with ADHD or other disabilities.
OP may be wrong but they are thinking about it like "ruining one child's future" vs "getting one child their car a month or two earlier."
The daughter is thinking "my little sister has to deal with the consequences and get me my new car ASAP but my parents baby her and they are just letting her get away with crashing my car "
The parents are going to pay for a replacement, they just need time. Having 10-30 percent of a part-time minimum wage job going into the pot isn't going to add much.
It is a shitty situation though and I would certainly be upset too.
Edit to add
I do hope the parents don't buy that daughter who crashed a car. I think she should wait at least a few years and then take more driving tests before she tries driving again.
This was what I came here to ask, severe ADHD, can barely manage school work, can’t work a part time job but can go out driving her sisters car by herself and the parents were ok with that?! Yep, OP is an AH
It is Schrodinger’s ADHD: not severe enough to let you do what you want but too severe to let you do what you need. As a person who’s had ADHD my entire life, I find assertions like OP’s to be insulting. If Alana could get a driver’s license, she can get a job. If she needs medication, then she should get it if she isn’t on it already and is responsible for anything that she does if she foregoes the medication.
I agree that the ADHD daughter should help pay to repair the damage she has caused, however there's a nationwide shortage of ADHD medications right now, so getting and staying on meds is difficult.
At Alana’s age, she should have some non-medicine based measures to help manage her ADHD, and if she cannot responsibly operate a motor vehicle without medication and is unmedicated, she shouldn’t be driving.
There are tons of people who have no diagnosis of any condition but are terrible drivers. Or they're OK drivers when they want to be, but their narcissism or cavalier attitude or downright stupidity keeps causing them to have accidents.
Auto insurance claims adjuster here, that is an incorrect interpretation of comprehensive coverage. Comprehensive covers losses from things that are not collisions with other vehicles or fixed objects such as walls.
Examples of comprehensive losses are animal hits, fires, and floods. Having comprehensive coverage does not provide any difference in the value of a vehicle.
Personally, I have full coverage, and even then, I had to fight tooth and nail to get the insurance to actually cover repairs when I got rear ended.
They wanted to total it and give me a payout. They offered 3 different payouts. What they wanted to payout would have never gotten me anywhere near as nice of a car as what I have.
It’s possible OP was presented with this scenario but took the initial payout, in which case even having full coverage would not guarantee Casey getting a car that she deemed to be of equal value to the original car.
Collision is when you hit something. Comprehensive is when something hits you. At least, that's the simplest way it was explained to me in P&C teaining.
AND medical payments or personal injury protection (dependent on which state you're in) should have covered for the injuries. If you don't have insurance coverage, you all got what you asked for and are lucky the accident wasn't worse.
Also, if my child saved all that money to get a better vehicle than I could get her, I would at least (at LEAST) offer to pay or help pay for good car insurance.
I pay for my kids' car insurance because I know that if I didn't they would get the cheapest bare-bones coverage they could find. I eat the cost to make sure they have adequate coverage.
A lot of people do not own cars simply due to the cost to PROPERLY insure & maintain them. Seems evident this car was under insured and that is a conversation that should have taken place before the car was bought.
Lots of learning opportunities here…
Sounds like neither parents nor kids have jobs which provide medical coverage? Or they have ridiculously high deductibles? Setting broken bones wouldn't devastate a normal family's finances unless they were paying out-of-pocket for everything.
My point was that even if (for whatever reason) their auto insurance wasn't covering injuries, their medical insurance should have been adequate enough to.
Medical biller here. Typically the medical benefit of the auto insurance is used up by physician visits and consults since those claims usually bill out faster. By the time the ED and facility claims go out, it's not uncommon for the medical benefit to be exhausted and then we bill out to the medical insurance. Most people have a deductible in the range of $2-$4k. Even if you meet that, most people have coinsurance with an out of pocket max you only see if you have massive hospital or treatment bills. I've seen out of pocket maxes go as high as $30k-$40k. And they reset annually. Medicare doesn't even have an out of pocket max.
Insurance pays the value of the vehicle, not the loan. That's what GAP coverage is for.
Barely anyone gets GAP because no one knows about it.
If your car isn't worth its loan amount, you have negative equity in your vehicle. Even if you were to trade it in, you would still have a loan on it to pay off yourself.
Is this gap insurance like full replacement value for used cars and/or non-auto possessions such as computer equipment, entertainment centers stolen in a burglary?
I always paid the bit extra for full replacement when I needed renters insurance; otherwise I'd be lucky to get $5 for my used, older possessions that would cost easily $500.
Fortunately, I was never robbed or burglarized/burgled.
If I remember right GAP coverage pays the difference between the cars value and what you owe on the car loan. Without it you're stuck paying the loan balance on a totaled car.
GAP is only great until you owe less than the value of the vehicle. We learned this the hard way. My daughter was making extra payments on her car when someone broadsided her and totalled it. She only had $2k left on her loan and the car was valued at $12k. Cancel GAP when the loan balance is equal to the vehicle value.
GAP is generally for large loans like in real estate or auto loans, I'm not entirely sure what all it covers besides like title insurance and appraisal stuff. I think it mainly sticks to things like taxes, fees, or deductibles when it comes to home GAP.
When it comes to vehicles, they have 3 different pricing rates. Trade in, wholesale, and retail. When a dealer sells a vehicle, it goes for the retail price. When you trade it in, it's the trade in price. Retail is the highest amount, so you can buy a car that in your hands is only worth 8k when you had to get a loan for 12K.
So if I were to keep the car for a couple of years and need a new one, my vehicle is worth 6k, but I still have a 9k loan. Insurance would give me 6k for the vehicle, but nothing else. I'd be on the hook for 3k. If I have GAP, it would pay the 3k for me. That way, it's all at zero.
In some places, car dealerships are required to offer GAP insurance… in some I think it’s required to have it for an X number of months/years when purchasing a new or used car when using a loan. Pretty sure when I bought my most recent car (new) with a loan, the cost of the GAP insurance was included in the monthly payment (and I don’t think it was much). That was a few years ago so I don’t remember exactly. I was also given GAP insurance when I purchased my very first car (used) which I believe was also included in the monthly payment of the loan.
Yes, most dealerships do offer it. But working in a dealership, I tell you not many take GAP policies, it costs more money, which a lot of people don't have. Most dealers wrap, GAP, T&W, and Warranty all into the loan. This causes the structure of the loan to be a higher amount, so people will cut corners to make things work in their favor financially.
Very few require GAP due to it being pretty much insurance for your loan. Lenders only care they get the most money out of the loan from you. The only thing that is truly required to drive off a lot is insurance, which, if there is a loan, is required to have full coverage.
Basic warranty is what most people get. Not many choose GAP, unfortunately, in my experience.
GAP is offered not only from the dealerships, but some banks/lenders also offer GAP policies for loans.
When I purchased my first car used, the dealership offered GAP insurance and while they said it wasn’t required by law, some of the lenders for the loan required it. And the loan that had the best offer was one that required GAP insurance so it was better to go with it. I also think this was the case when I purchased my new car with a different lender (both Credit Unions). The monthly payment was still within what I told the dealership I could afford (I also ended up getting a higher trade-in value than what was initially offered because I was showing hesitance - that was not my intent though). So in my case, both times it was better to go with GAP insurance than not. Thankfully I have not needed it.
I wholeheartedly agree that it's better to have and not need than need and not have.
If you do personal financing like you did, not lending through a dealer or it's lenders, they generally will, just so if anything happens, they cover themselves.
It really depends on the lender and vehicle, I only was required insurance with my auto loan. Never offered GAP or anything. I went through a CU myself, but the only grace I got was a good APR.
Pretty much it all comes down to what lenders want. They set the hoops to jump through even if they're too high for the average Joe. They just want that loan paid back in full.
I've seen people get approved for a $18,000 loan, but the life of the loan would make them pay $44,000. You can also have a vehicle at a retail price of 10k but only have a trade-in value of 4k. The industry is rigged against customers unfortunately.
In my state the loan provider must advise you on GAP insurance, you must be given the right to refuse. In fact, because of this most of our auto insurance no longer allow you to add it after the fact, they don’t even offer it anymore.
Wow! I didn't know that! I'm MI based. We also, unfortunately, are a no-fault state. So our laws are pretty messed up in regards to our insurance policies and whatnot.
I'm not a fan of the job, but it gets bills paid. I feel like a scam artist half the time, so, atp, just using the job for experience, then going to leave.
I went from a cash car to a financed one, didn't get gap because I didn't know it existed (ykno having previously had an uncrashed cash car for 3 years) then totalled my new baby in my first crash 3 weeks later lmao got 87$ after the loan coverage, sad to say I'm a lucky one 😭
Those people are better off getting a recent year used car. GAP insurance prevents you from being upside down if your car is totaled and depreciation has reduced its value to less than the pay off price. Even with rule of 78 loans, used cars never go more than a payment or two under, while new cars are a years worth of principle under or more.
I had a recent year used car with a $3000 down payment. I opted for gap because I knew that after a year of owning it, the depreciation would put it at less than what I owed.
I bought a used vehicle from Hertz rental in 2016. It had 40,000 miles. I paid $16,000. I could still buy that 2016 model new, for the features it had it was $28,000. It was a helluva deal, but there was going to be a point where I owed more than what the car was worth.
Insurance companies are quick to total cars out these days. Gap insurance makes sense for most cars that have loans out on them.
GAP only pay the difference between the loan principle and the car’s value. If there is no point in which if you make your payments that the car will be worth less than the principle left on the loan, then GAP insurance will be a waste. And really if the value is less than a couple months car payments then it is also a waste. Only if you can’t put down 15-25% on a new car should you buy GAP.
Yeah... We are absolutely drowning over here bc we thought we were being financially smart.
We "wasted" money on disability for years, so we finally dropped it because we only have one income and things are tight.
Turns out we were paying for "Murphy's Law" protection. 😭
Sometimes properly insuring the car is not in the budget either, especially with the cost of first time driver insurance if this is the first three years of her driving.
However, since she saved up for a better car than her family could have bought her, it’s possible that no one included insurance costs in considering the affordability of the vehicle. That’s a very common mistake that ends up with people buying a car they can’t afford to insure properly.
You’re never going to get made whole from an insurance payout, your car loses value as soon as you drive it off the lot, so if you get in an accident on your way home from the dealership you’re not going to get the full purchase price.
Even if it’s a cheap used car, what you paid for it or what you think it’s worth makes no difference to the insurance company, they will pay you what they say it’s worth
You don't know what you're talking about as far as terminology.
Comprehensive coverage is for things like hail, flooding, acts of God. It's a separate first party coverage.
Collision coverage is what would cover an accident like this.
If money is owed on the car, and there is a concern that more money is owed than the car is worth, Collision coverage only pays out fair market value for the car in the event of a total loss. You would need to get separate gap insurance, usually through whomever you bought the car from, to cover the difference - the "gap".
Although insurance does exist to allow someone to "replace" their totaled car through some carriers, it's not common and very expensive. I've never seen someone that carries it in a claim that I've handled for two different companies.
It’s interesting to me how vague some of OP’s details are. He didn’t say the car is TOTALED, he said it’s “basically undriveable.”
So…insurance covered the actual damage, they took a cash payout instead of having insurance pay a collision repair company to fix it, so where’s the money?
We’re discussing why Alana can’t pay for a replacement but haven’t really stated that a replacement is required, or why. Parents pocketed the insurance settlement or spent it on their favorite child’s broken arm.
This leads me to ask who was paying for the car insurance. If it was Casey, I kind of do hope she never speaks to her family again. (Okay, I shouldn’t say that, but I’d understand it.)
If the car is indeed totaled, they reimbursed the value of the car and it can be replaced with that money.
From my experience I can say even with full coverage if the insurance company/ State rules the car is totaled the insurance company will only pay out BBK value unless you have a custom car. I was rear ended and it was over 8000 dollars to repair my van And that was the BBK value was only 5000
In Florida, a vehicle is considered a total loss under the law if the cost to repair the vehicle is 80% or more of its fair market value.
Needless to I loss my but on that because I could not afford to throw more money into a vehicle than what I was given
Even full coverage doesn’t necessarily cover replacement of a current vehicle. The replacement cost will be depreciated based on the age and mileage of the car prior to the accident.
I agree! When you finance a car, full coverage is mandatory per the lender. Lenders also offer GAP, guaranteed asset protection, which means if your car gets totaled and the payoff for your vehicle (which is based on depreciated value, not what you still owe on the vehicle) is short of what you still owe GAP will fill in the balance of what is still owed to make the lender whole & any leftover goes to insured. As someone who stupidly turned down GAP because it would raise the car note slightly and then landed up with a totaled car, I had to make car payments on a car I wasn’t driving for nearly a year to satisfy the loan and it was a life lesson I’ll never forget.
I also highly recommend full coverage on an auto purchased in full, most people go with liability only with state minimums and get stuck owing thousands in repairs or an undrivable vehicle. Also: if you rear end a luxury vehicle repairing it could likely go over your liability limit (some states have it ridiculously low) and the YOU have to pay the difference out of your own pocket.
A lot of times insurance pays out very little due to the accident being said drivers fault. I’ve dealt with it myself. They aren’t going to pay out for her car because it was very likely the sisters fault the accident occurred.
That is not how it works at all. The insurance company determines the value... You don't get to determine how much insurance you carry for your vehicle. Only exception is adding declaration for modifications like after market parts or customized like a lift.
The only time that applies is for uninsured motorist where you can select a value, but they still only pay a set value no matter your selection.
Collision pays to repair or replace your car after an accident.
Comprehensive pays in cases where your car is damaged outside of an accident like theft, hail, fire, etc.
Liability is where you can select how much insurance you carry for values... This is for other people's care/property/persons medical...
The full market value pays out less than it cost you to purchase the car because of depreciation.
When your car is totaled, even with good insurance, you're still forking out additional money between standard depreciation and price inflation of buying.
Sounds like OP is willing to make the older daughter whole, but can't make up the difference until they get through medical bills. Sucks for the older daughter, but his priorities are in the right place.
True, what do you do when you feel like you can't afford that level of insurance, but you need a car to get to work? You take a risk... welcome to being poor, where poor financial decisions surround you and somehow it's even more expensive to live with less...
Depending on the market, full coverage with an 18 and 16 yo drivers is going to be insanely expensive. Frankly Alana needs to not drive period. Let the parents save hundreds each month not having to insure a 16 yo driver with a total collision on their record.
Right? I would have been like “can Casey pay for the insurance increase? No? Welp, guess she can’t drive legally, so I can’t approve her driving either” and just ended it there. Driving is a privilege not a right, and it costs money to have access to a car/ insurance. Casey felt entitled and likely invested nothing but took it all away. The parents are at fault for allowing that situation. Casey should have also been told that they would figure out how to start saving up for her to have it be a teachable moment
Willing to bet Alana wasn’t listed as a driver. All drivers who reside in the house, and plan to drive that car, need to be listed on the policy. I feel bad for Casey, especially since she appears to be the only responsible adult in the home.
Blows my mind how these people buying a car for a minor driver wouldn't get proper gap insurance to protect it in case of very likely accidents that teens are prone to. Just stupid on their part. But their stupidity is not Casey's problem. They owe her a car. Better get a car loan stat.
Insurance is literally such a scam. My friend’s car was rear ended - it was halfway through being paid off and had full coverage insurance. The accident totaled the car so the pay out from insurance for the “full value of the vehicle” just barely covered the rest of the loan and didn’t pay him back for any the money he had already put in previously. Just saying that even if they did everything right (which sounds like OP didn’t) they may still have gotten the short end of the stick.
They could have had full coverage and not cheaped out. Most auto insurance with full coverage would never cover the full replacement value of a used car. They will only pay out what they have determined was the value of the car, which is almost never even close to replacement costs. At least where I am
Insurance pays what the car is currently worth, in their opinion. I don’t think you get to pick levels of full coverage, just the deductible. I think liability limits are what you can choose. OP makes it sound like insurance paid out some amount for the car. A lot of people also don’t know the value is negotiable to an extent. Insurance is in business to pay out as little as possible while fulfilling their obligations.
As someone who's made insurance coverage choices that weren't idea,l you don't do them because you want to. You know that you're flying under a risky flag but it's better than not having insurance at all or not driving at all. We all had buckets of money to throw at our problems life would be a hell of a lot easier.
Even 1st party insurance generally doesn't give you enough to actually replace like for like. In theory it's meant to, but it never actually works out that way.
A lot of people just have liability because the car isn't worth the cost of insurance. You're not going to pay several thousand a year for a car worth 10K.
This isn't always possible. My insurance maxed out at the price I paid for the car (what it was worth) unfortunately, that wasn't nearly enough to buy a new car when mine got totalled by an idiot running a red light. I know that's a specific example but just wanted to say even paying for full insurance doesn't always mean you can afford to replace the car.
I had full insurance, my car got totalled, it was a second hand corsa but I didn't get as much as I paid for it by a large chunk or how much I could sell it for. They use a calculation that knocks down what you paid even if it was recent and fair value.
A lot of times used cars even if you have Collision on them they'll total the car out rather than fix it and what they give you is supposedly the replacement value of the exact same car but there's no way that you can ever find one for that price.
My daughter (25) totalled her car last year. She'd only had it for a few months. We have good insurance, well above the minimum, but the payout was too low. The insurance company couldn't find good comps (older car, somewhat uncommon type) and would barely assign any value to the very low mileage, plus they were not making any allowances for the recent increase in used car prices. They used Kelley Blue Book, which was laughably low. No GAP insurance because she paid cash. Long story short, she was left several thousand short of the amount she needed to realistically replace the car.
For sure, but parents usually set the standard for what is expected. The parents may have been forcing Casey to allow Alana to drive the car when Alana wasn’t even an approved driver. Casey likely would not know that stuff as a new driver and would need guidance
Responding to your edits, it actually sounds like they did have proper collision coverage.
There is no lowest collision coverage. The most common collision coverage is based on the actual cash value of a vehicle which accounts for depreciation and thecondition of the vehicle. You seem to be thinking of "replacement cost value which is a fairly rare coverage. The only time I've ever seen it be purchased on a policy was for vintage or extremely rare vehicles. It's not a coverage that is typically offered or purchased on regular every day cars.
Based on his statement that the payout wasn't enough to replace the vehicle, there was nothing wrong with the collision coverage that was purchased. You wouldn't get a payout for vehicle damages without having collision coverage. What most likely happened was that when the vehicle was totaled, it was worth much less the cost of the same kind of vehicle.
But the collision coverage can refuse to payout if Alana was driving and not a designated driver. Which would still mean- improper coverage. The payout could have just been PIP $10k minimum etc we don’t have those details. We’d need to know about the insurance etc to be able to make a call
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u/chatminteresse 5d ago edited 5d ago
Also, why didn’t they have the car properly insured? If you can’t afford to replace the car, it needs proper full collision coverage. Especially if being driven by people other than the owner so that the owner can be made whole in case of an incident. Cheaper to keep full collision coverage than replace a car. Was Alana even a driver on the policy?
Edits for terminology
Thinking more- it honestly sounds like maybe they only had basic PIP and the lowest collision insurance possible maybe even no UM depending on the laws of where they are. Risky choices for anyone
It sounds like they saved up to pay cash, prob no gap insurance option