Sanction or Embargo?

After pulling myself back out of the mouth of the head shark and giving it some thought, after reaching this point after finding out that the vehicle was totaled as collision meaning the whole hail damage issue was moot, I decided to re-contact the local dealer we knew with the new scenario and see if we could re-boot. However, I got somebody totally different this time – I didn’t even know they had this many people) and he just said, without any hesitation, that he would talk to their title clerk, who wasn’t there that day – only works part time – and would be back yesterday, about it and see what they could do, and to call him back tomorrow, so we’ll see what will be…

Over the Mountain to the Big Box Store

Okay trying to reinput this in a mistaken earlier one so this needs to go back down – this was the 2nd step in this process not what’s going on now if you can follow this

took a while to get the Affidavit of Correction from the other state. The lady had to get them to agree to send it out of state without charging then still took a while for them to get around to doing it then they didn’t call first so when it started coming through I wasn’t expecting it, thinking it was a call from her letting me know so it got all hung up and had to remake contact and get it resent, all while younger son is waiting to be taken to meet a guy we know to help him with his work for the rest of the day but he’s being patient. Finally got it pulled to go to take him then meet the guy to get it signed. Had to take him all the way one direction which led to me being able to stop and check on a old friend and get some bad news but that’s another story then stop by another friend’s store who was closed for the holidays then another old shop had moved but another one had moved in and found an antique piece like to get for granddaughter so need to see about that, then on to the new/old store to check on some other things for her, then to make contact now that I’m back actually in town and head out over the mountain to meet them and get it signed. Wow

In the mouth of

okay contacted the other state local DMV – remember I’d already been to the head asst. – but when I told him we were no longer dealing with hail damage but collision he then proceeded to tell me we were just trying to do a run-in around the law; I’m sorry my information was incorrect but I had been just passing along what I had been told, which is why they want documentation in the first place. I couldn’t help it that the info turned out to be inaccurate, not surprising I’m sure but still not something I could help. But then I guess it sure didn’t help when I proceeded to tell him it had been repaired because yes, it’s supposed to be repaired by the out of state buyer; well, again are we supposed to be able to help it that they had already repaired it? well, that wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if they had the receipts for the parts they used – but – they didn’t use it any – what part of repair vs replace do you not understand? okay the law reads you can issue a receipt for your own labor valuing your time but that’s probably where the issue is – your own labor, not someone else’s; if so, they probably have to be licensed; ran into that with another issue that I didn’t even blog about, may go back and do that, another time. So he finally passed me off to the big (shark?) – the actual head of the department – the actual clerk – yes, they’re called that in that state, not just some lowly clerical person but the actual clerk for the state department. But not before he threw out that we would still need the documentation as to why it was totaled before he threw me out, so we’ll see.

Now remember when I had the title faxed to them they said they couldn’t read the owner’s name; it was blacked out. Well, the big shark said he wouldn’t even talk to me until he could see that. I made the mistake of sticking my arm in his mouth in questioning his equipment because the title processor at the title processing company that they had told me to contact said they have them come in all the time and that doesn’t happen to them. Well, he said his equipment was new so he didn’t think that was the problem but a copy could always be mailed. Now if it wasn’t his equipment I didn’t see how that would help but I told him I would try to get that done.

So I contacted our man again and he suggesting scanning and e-mailing it if that were possible. So contacted the DMV office again and got head shark’s e-mail, sent it to him and he proceeded to send. Head shark did open it for he got a read receipt.

Now this gets interesting when I get back in contact with head shark because he doesn’t even deal with the insurance issue. He goes back to just instate salvage titling it, which is what we were going to do to begin with until his “lowly clerical person” discouraged us from doing so because it would be too much trouble to title it twice – maybe I should have asked – too much trouble for who – us or you? Now of course we would still have to deal with this issue later but that’s a different situation. But of course now we run into yet another dilemma. Remember in going the other route we’d already gotten actually now 2 affidavits of correction. However, this (shark)  wants the actual title cleaned up and the name of the man we’ve been dealing with completely off the title. Because remember I stated earlier it is true in this out of state state you cannot skip owners getting titled unless they are dealers.

Now there is a good reason for that because in actuality it is true that the affidavits of correction were not really the route to go in this situation. Those are really designed if you are dealing with the true titled owner of the vehicle who just had  a prior situation with someone else who had signed the title as buyer but then had truly never taken possession of the vehicle. This, as you know, is not really our situation. And, as you also know, he’s the one who signed the original out of state affidavit, not the titled owner. And yes, he was at least going to attempt to sign the local one. However, remember originally we had the notarizing taken care of but this time we didn’t so not sure how that would have worked anyway. Because again, remember when he had the title notarized he was using his own name signature but that wouldn’t be the case in this situation.

Now that might not  really be a problem even though yes, it would mean her name would be forged which she had said there would be if it were especially since it was going out of state if it were not for the insurance issue, which might not be an issue with repair but then again still might. 

Hm, okay, now had we known this before I contacted them re the insurance issue when she had offered to do basically that very thing but however then she said she had contacted the state and said that she would not sign any papers  pertaining to the vehicle she might have been willing to do that but not now. And actually it’s possible the insurance issue would still have come up later anyway,  remember the assistant somewhat threw that out before he threw me out. It is possible that doing it the way the head shark is saying would take care of that but not sure at this point. But also it’s possible we can end up getting the insurance documentation now from the “salvage pool” now that we know they have it. The main reason I was going ahead and contacting the insurance company in the first place was for the hopeful possibility that the salvage pool’s info was actually incorrect but of course we found that was not true; it was indeed totaled for collision; it just some doing to actually confirm that. And the reason why that original documentation for hail damage was so important was that we would even have to get into any of this other if that had been the case but now we’re just somewhat back to square one.

However, there’s still another possibility.

Jaws

I need to back up. Between the Friday before the holidays and the day I spent pursuing the whys of the vehicle being totaled for collision was the day when I found out it was that was also the day I recontacted the member of the legacy team, who turned out to not be an adjuster. Rather than even just tell me whether she had gotten the claims record out of archive, as per our agreement, she turned me over to the supervisor of the team of adjusters that I had left a message with on Friday. She had gotten it and said she was just getting ready to call me (aren’t they always) to tell me to give the insured her name and number, have her to contact her and she would 3-way me in. The insureds are a mother and daughter and I knew the mother works during the day, I opted to call the daughter. She then made the offer to re-buy the vehicle for the purchase price the man we’d been talking to was wanting for it to reimburse him for the work he’d done to it, work which she had wanted done to it anyway when she had it, then sell it to us herself.

Now this pertains to the issue of the affidavit of correction, or rather the issue of the notarizing of it because she’s the one who actually needs to sign and have it notarized. That was the actual concern in calling that local DMV in the first place after having spent the day with the local one down here getting it in the first place after them telling me I had to have that one. However, that in itself does not resolve the issue of the insurance documentation.

So it turned out she called her mother who in turn called me and asked me for the person’s name and number, which I gave her the name and number of the insurance supervisor I had talked to who had asked me to give it to her and she said she would call. I was going to wait until the next day before I contacted her to give them time to contact me. However, because of some other situations I found I needed to go ahead and contact her later that day, which turned out to be good, since they’d been playing phone tag.

So since it turned out they had not talked to each other I continued to attempt to inquire as to whether the claim record had been retrieved out of archive. I made contact with the person I had talked with on Friday regarding this who had told me she was where it was actually done. She remembered me and gave me the name and number of who I thought was the actual total loss adjuster (or maybe salvage) who had actually worked this claim but he was back over this way and so already gone for the day.

So I called the insured again only to learn that’s not whose number she’d been wanting.

To back up again, when I talked with the daughter earlier when she made the offer, it was part of a concern she had that the man we’d been talking to still had the title with her name on it. She said she’d understood he was going to get the vehicle titled in his name.

So the mother was wanting his name and number.

Now I had never said anything to him about contacting them or even finding out how to since to begin with he had said he didn’t know how to and maybe he doesn’t anymore just like they no longer know how to contact their prior insurance company after having contacted them and not being able to make a satisfactory arrangement with them regarding this whole situation. So even though now she seems willing I certainly don’t feel free to give out his information any more so than she likes knowing hers is still out there for me to have gotten.

So I, in turn, contacted him and told him the insurance company would only talk to the insured but also that I had gotten the contact info for the actual adjuster and would attempt to do that.

To back up again, when we went to look at the vehicle it turned out that his daughter was the one who had actually bought the vehicle or at least she’s the one who provided the money for it from her job. She’s actually too young to have actually bought it. So she’s the one who’s actually trying to get it sold and posted it.

So by this time she’s given up on this whole deal and has reposted it but it will still have the same problems being sold in this state that it had before but possibly someone will come along who can take care of it.

Son actually has given up as well. But since I have this contact info I will continue to pursue it just to see just in case no one does. He’d like to have even though it’s not exactly what he wants but he can’t find that either.

I then did recontact the daughter insured to let her know that the car had been reposted re her prior offer, which would eliminate my having to be the middleman in facilitating the contact between them.

Then because of what happened after this turned into something completely other so back up to the last post to get the rest of the story – this has gotten somewhat backwards with leaving this day and this out but will now continue with what happened when made the contacts to the respective DMVs.

Shark Bite

Okay, so since the title processing company says that the totaling of the vehicle for collision came explicitly off a transmittal form straight from the insurance company, the question becomes who sends those and why was this one sent as collision? Automated system saves the day. In one of the round of new phone calls back to the insurance company or rather to the “helpchoiceclaimcenter”, of which of course there are several, besides the fact of claim or customer service, or is claims customer service or customer service claims and for 21st or Farmers, anyway, this time they were all busy and got the automated which has you put in the claim number, which I have now and wow, up pops another adjuster name and phone number (guess they forgot to delete their automated system), so of course I call him. He’s been moved off the claim, all of the 21st century claims, of course, over to Farmers, and also from office adjuster to field adjuster. Now another thing I’ve learned is that normally that would be a demotion because many insurance use “just anybody” for field adjusters and reserve their “professionals” for office personnel, but Farmers, as I understand has a totally different modality. They tout themselves as using only degreed professionals for field adjusters, who “know what they’re doing”.  This is the order in which this procedure works for those who don’t know; you call in to report a claim and it is taken by a “first report of loss” person (I know, how original) who then turns it over to the office adjuster who assigns it to a field adjuster, who goes out and inspects the damage and does an evaluation, which he then turns into the office adjuster, who reviews it and if it’s a total loss, now sends it to a total loss team, at least for Farmers. Now for 21st the office adjuster himself would send the total loss paperwork for salvage title to the title processing company the insurance company has hired to do such things if that is the case or if not, the person at the insurance company itself. In the case, this means that the adjuster named on the automated system was the one to send this information to the title processing company. However, since he’d been pulled off those claims he no longer had access to that system to be able to see the claim record to know why the vehicle had been totaled. However, to go back again, in this process of finding out where these electronic records are technically “stored” or rather where the main claims center is, I’d been given yet another name for the adjuster and contacted him. He told me that in the claims process either one of the adjusters or the “first report of loss” person pulls a CLUE or ISO report, which would have shown up the collision that was reported that was with the other vehicle. However, that collision didn’t really do much damage, not enough to total the vehicle. But the fact that it wasn’t reported even though it involved another vehicle could be a factor. As I would google as I would wait on hold on these myriad phone calls I ran across sites that said to talk to title people at dealership, etc. because often they would actually know more about the process than the people at the DMV itself. So in my conversations with the title processor herself at the title processing company, which is actually a vehicle auction company, she told me that even though the insurance companies in this state are mandated by law to total a vehicle at a certain threshhold they actually have discretion to do it at a lower level for different reasons, not reporting an accident involving another vehicle being one of them, especially if there’s an issue of them being at fault, which in this case even though, at least supposedly in this case the police report did not find this insured at fault, the other party’s insurance did and was trying to claim damages, although somehow they had obtained this insured’s insurance information but since it was reported it still would show up on the report pulled when she filed this claim and that would not be good. So as part of trying to find out about this report I was told that underwriting would be the ones to handle that after it was pulled in determining the future status of the insurance policy, meaning it could be that the policy was cancelled over this rather than them cancelling it themselves. However, once again this proved to not be the case because it was a 21st century claim so once again we’re routed back to the “helpchoiceclaimscenter”, to the people who had earlier looked at the claim record, which by now of course had been retrieved from archives (remember that?), and told me that  50% had been deducted for prior damage and confirmed that it had indeed been totaled for collision. But the question still remained as to why if only 50% considered prior damage, which would be the collision, leaving 50% for the hail damage, especially since the prior damage on the report would not account for 50% of the total damage to the vehicle. So I then re-contacted the adjuster I’d been given by the automated system to get an explanation of the process. Thus,  the field adjuster himself does not even necessarily go by the report; he actually may not even see that; that possibly only comes into play by the office adjuster who might adjust the field adjuster’s evaluation, which is on further records of the claims record than just the notes that the claims center is able to see. The rest is only accessible by the assigned adjuster on the legacy team. However, I know that there was another “collision”, in quotes because it involved a run-in with a deer, with the deer hitting the car in the driver’s side fender (even though she said door; explain how know later) with those normally not considered collision, with that term usually only used if considered avoidable thereby if not avoided driver considered to be at fault. If considered unavoidable it’s typically processed under comprehensive as well, meaning like hail damage.  So there still should have been no reason for the vehicle to have been totaled under collision. Except that, once again, this incident had not been reported by the insured nor a claim filed on it. If it had been the 50%  deducted would normally have come into play if there had been a prior settlement yet no repairs had been made to the vehicle 50% of that settlement would now be deducted from this one because of that. But  what happens in situations like this is that when you do finally file a claim and a field adjuster comes out they are required to not just make an evaluation on the claim you actually filed on but they are required to also make an evaluation on any prior damages they notice on the vehicle and then either give an estimate for the whole cost of repair or make a determination as to what percentage of the damage is due to prior damage. Then the office would be given the notice that this prior damage had not been reported nor filed on, thus giving reason to close the case under collision rather than comprehensive without even making a determination regarding the incident, simply because it had not been reported but had to be seen by the field adjuster working a later claim. So now, conceding that the vehicle could be deemed to be totaled collision for possibly nothing actually related to the actual percentage of damages to the vehicle we now had to determine those percentages in order to decide what would be deemed to need to be repaired in order to now decide whether to pursue applying to receive a rebuilt title or continue to pursue the hail damage route by challenging the adjuster’s decision, which actually we would not be able to do; that could only be done by the insured, so I suppose I should say, more to the point, to decide whether to continue to pursue trying to see if we could get them to do so,  since we now could not get a good one without that being done. Now we had seen the vehicle and it still did not appear to have 50% damage to the driver’s side fender (or door) from the deer collision, although it did have a dent, so I now contacted the person that we had seen the vehicle from. And he told me his daughter’s boyfriend beat it out. So that does seem to indicate it could have that much damage before, so now we’ll concede that point. Hm, where does that leave us now?  Normally what’s considered a repair involves replacing parts for which you should get a receipt that you have to have to turn in with your application for rebuilt title.  However,  one of the other differences as I understand it  in this state and that one is that you can do the repairs yourself and value your labor, thereby writing a receipt from yourself. However, that’s another question for that local DMV. He also had gotten estimates for the repair from several body shops ranging from about $2400 to $4200, which he was unwilling to pay - amazing the difference, isn’t it? makes you wonder what figures the insurance adjuster uses? according to the discretion I was told they have, I would think it could make a difference as to whether they want to total your vehicle out based on, oh, I don’t know, maybe such things as not reporting prior claims, just saying. However, the title processing company did say the insurance company said the cost to repair was almost the cash value of the car, so of course we’re not sure what figure they used for that. I know it would be valued now at $6K. I do know the insured did try to dispute the totalling but if you have that kind of history with the company I doubt you would get far, which is why I doubt we would really be able to go that route now but we might. However, that’s another story.

One issue to bring up again at this point is that at this time he did not know the issue he would run into if, after having paid for the repairs, had he had that done, if these body shops had not been licensed rebuilders, he still would not have been able to get the vehicle titled in his name. The only way to do that, short of him obtaining his own rebuilders’s license, would be for him to go through an established rebuilder. Now, had he known this situation at the time, he could possibly have presented it to the body shops and they could potentially have pointed in a direction of a rebuilder. But since he didn’t he didn’t and they didn’t. Then he still didn’t know it when they proceeded to repair it themselves. However, when he found out, had he been willing to go back to the body shops he’d talked to and told them what he’d run into they still might have willing to direct him at that point. It would have been better in some ways to have done this before they repaired it, though, because a rebuilder might not be willing to get involved after the repair but that would possibly depend on that particular one; however, true enough, if they didn’t know you, it could present a problem, although possibly that could be overcome with the proper documentation, which, once again, normally would be receipts for replacement parts but in this case could be simply a signed and notarized affidavit for what was done. However, the whole rebuilder aspect is a nonissue for taking it out of state but the documentation of how repaired may not be. But the real issue is that nothing was done so the title has remained in the previous owner’s name with them not realizing that thinking this had long been taken care, wondering now what’s been going on for the last 1-1/2 years.

 Nowfor a whole other aspect of this whole vehicle situation. In addition to all the title issues, this vehicle also had engine issues. Somewhere in all of this process while the insured still had it, whether this was before or after the hail damage and/or collision, it began to develop an engine knock/tap or sorts, meaning going to require major engine work but still driveable for the present. This was known at the time of sale; however, another aspect of this involves who that actually involved, which I won’t get into right now. However, what it does mean is that who actually did physically purchase the vehicle and sign the bill of sale promptly proceeded to finalize the engine demise. At some point then is when it was turned over to the daughter – it was her boyfriend at the time who had done this – and her father, which is who we’d been dealing with. He purchased a new engine and  either this boyfriend or a subsequent one (which would be understandable one, would it not?) , another friend or at least somebody they either knew or somewhat hired helped him rebuild the engine, which is also what she had wanted to have done as well, although I believe she was going to have it professionally done, as she assume that he would have, so she expected it to have long been done and this title issue already taken care of. And had he gone ahead and attempted to do before he took care of the engine issue, which has nothing to do with the title, he would have found this out before he put in all that expense, hence there not being an issue of wanting to be reimbursed so this whole issue could potentially have already been resolved by simply returning the car and getting the refund for what was paid for it but that’s not what was done.  So somewhere in all of this she thought we were only interested in this vehicle for this engine; hence why she didn’t understand why we were needing to obtain all this documentation. However, that was never the case. It was something we considered ourselves with all the issues surrounding this vehicle; however, this engine is not compatible with the vehicle we have so we cannot use just it.

So apparently while I spent the day obtaining the insurance information she contacted the my state DMV and told them she would not be signing any papers pertaining to this vehicle, which in itself is not a problem, since the whole point of all this was to take the vehicle out of state, hence not going through this state’s DMV.  However, it somewhat does cause a problem with the paper I spent all day obtaining from my state’s local DMV office to send out of state because as I said earlier she is the one who technically needs to sign the paper although possibly not necessarily. However, that’s part of what needs to be resolved with the local out of state DMV office.

However, she also she was going to contact the my state DMV again to see what she could do about turning this salvage title into a parts only title so it truly could not be sold so she could ensure that she would be completely eliminated from any involvement with it.  

So  in addition to now back to contacting that local DMV again and telling him what I’ve found out – that, no, turns out it was not totaled for hail damage but for collision but repair has been made and see what now..

will also need to contact my state DMV as well to see what would be involved in that being done and how that would impact what we are trying to do

Swimming in the salvage pool – with the sharks

Just a little history re AIG – they’d owned a large portion of an insurance company called 20th century until of course the 21st when they changed their name until they decided they wanted to own all of it and do away with the name. AIG, up until that time had used independent agents, while 20/21st century was more of an online, agentless insurance company for the new generation, which AIG was wanting to go completely to for their auto policy business. What does that have to do with anything, you ask? well, first of all when I finally found a number for AIG it made a difference whether you had gotten your policy through an agent or not. If you did, you had to get your information from him. I had gotten an agent name from the insurance company.  It turns out AIG was just an umbrella company consisting of quite a few companies, hence probably at least part of their problem. So when all the catastrophe hit they decided they probably shouldn’t go quite that far so they kept the 21st century name for their auto policy business. However, as part of the federal bailout, in order to be able to repay the loan they had to begin to try to sell some of these companies and 21st century was their most profitable one. So they got an offer first thing for it from Farmers Insurance, which was also wanting to get into an online, agentless side of their business as well as their exclusive agent side.  What does that have to do with anything, you ask? well, first of all when I finally found a number for AIG it made a difference whether you had gotten your policy through an agent or not. If you did you had to get your information from him. Oh, I failed to tell you I did get an agent name from the insurance company and found a phone number and address but ran into the same thing with calling I did before so was going to go but was trying this route first. So when I was able to give them an agent name they did have him in their system with the same phone number so I tried again, and again was able to contact him this time. Again, I was probably just too early the first time. You get up and start early but that doesn’t mean the whole world does.  But somewhat again like last time, he said since AIG does no longer use agents, at least independent ones; (I found out later they are going back to an agent model but exclusive ones now, like ALFA  and Farmer does; maybe they’re seeing that’s a better business model, since both of those companies seem to have done pretty well), when he could no longer write policies for them, he discarded all his information, but he said it didn’t really matter for this purpose anyway because he didn’t have anything to do with claims anyway; they were handled directly with the company. And actually I was informed later that he didn’t really have the role of a true agent, anyway (maybe that’s the difference between an independent and an exclusive); he served somewhat merely as a broker to help you find an insurance company not truly as a agent of that company. He didn’t even have a phone number. And also the owner/title/holder’s policy had already been cancelled by that point as well.  So I go online again and this time make sure to tell them I’ve talked to the agent on file and he says he doesn’t have the information and explained what he’d said about how it was handled and what he said we needed to do so I get a number that I am told will be able to help me; it was what is called a helppointclaims number, which serves more than one insurance company.  It at least gets you into an agentless claims/customer service queue and we are able to pull up a hail damage claim by the name, address, and phone number (have I told you about obtaining all of that) of the insured - so get a claim number and am told it is a 21st century claim and I will need to talk to them and they gave me a name and number of the adjuster(remember at this point I had never heard of that company) and because it was hail damage they said it was handled by the regional catastrophe team and give me that number; however, when I call it I learn it is no longer taking calls. It’s one of those temporary numbers they set up during a time like that but then take down when it’s over.  However, that is all because since it is so old it has been archived and they have to request it to be retrieved – really this means unlocked in their systems, not actually retrieve a paper copy – they’ve gone to a paperless system -  by their people there in the help point claims center, which will take at least all day, although it’s still fairly early in the day; if we could just get things done just a little earlier in the day we could possibly gain some days (like manufacturers with their coupons; they’re not going to let us get ahead of them, but that’s another story) along the way but that just seems to be the way things keep going. Now, to jump ahead somewhat as the file did get retrieved from archives and some information did begin to come to light some concerns began  to arise regarding the collision that had shown up on the accident report. It involved another vehicle and I’d been given its insurance company, which I also contacted. Now this one had no problem pulling  information as old, actually older than this claim/file, but they didn’t have the insurance information that I’d understood was on the accident report, which I found rather strange and they found strange that I had it. Maybe I’d misunderstood and that’s not where it came from. Maybe it came from a CLUE or ISO report, which an insurance company you’re trying to get insurance with would pull on you with information of your previous insurance companies. That company would have had reason to have done that where the one only involved in a claim would not. And, no, that is not something I knew before; it’s something I also found out through all of this. When I tried to contact the adjuster I now ran into the day too late syndrome, being the last day before New Year’s now;  of course he’s gone, oh, wait did I say of course, only because it turned out he wasn’t just an adjuster; he’s the branch manager because the actual adjuster is inactive. This means he has been pulled off the claim. Now he did have people to contact which I then proceeded to do. But these people were all answering the phone (when they did, which not all did; I left a message with one, who turned out to be the supervisor) as Farmers (?) so what is going on? Finally one  of them told me what I’ve already related about the relationship between 21st century, AIG, and Farmers. But this was done as part of explaining that Farmers has set up a legacy team for  handling 21st century claims that were made prior to their taking it over and any former adjusters that were not made part of this team were made inactive on the claims. The adjuster on the claim is “merely” the head of this legacy team. I finally did make contact with one of the members of this team for our region. They did also tell me that Farmers set up a total loss team that I learned later is instead of the salvage dept. that 21st century had.  However, they, too only handle claims reported since the Farmers take-over; otherwise anything regarding them is handled by the legacy team as well. I was finally able to make contact with a legacy team member who said she would need the insured’s permission to tell me anything regarding the claim from the record, which I understood. We left it, since we had the holiday weekend coming up, that I would be back in touch after the holiday to see if she actually had the record and she would tell me that much before I made further contact with the insured.  However, what I did not mention was that in the middle of trying to contact a member of this team, in contacting one of the people the adjuster had listed he mentioned the hopeful possibility that the claim number the salvage pool had was not the same, that there had just been an error somewhere so I swam over to the salvage pool to check the claim number and not only was it indeed the same but it was not just something coded but was explicitly stated on the transmittal form from the insurance company.

Rooting and routing and swimming in the salvage pool

Okay, so per local (KY) DMV I recontacted the “mail to” address on the title – the company that processed the salvage title for the insurance company to ask them about this “salvage pool”. As I expected, they first said this state did not have such a thing; that was an out-of-state term, that that may be how they do things up there but not us down here, unless of course they’re merely talking about the pool of vehicles that are turned over to the insurance company to be auctioned or as otherwise known, “run through the sale”. hm, so in other words, we do have a “salvage pool”; it just may not include “owner-retained” vehicles, which they never see, only process the paperwork, which is why they can be done by any office of the company, not necessarily the one closest to the vehicle, unlike when they’re actually turned over to the insurance company, in which case they have to handled by the closest office. She had somewhat explained this before but it didn’t really matter before as then it was just getting preliminaries. That could explain the local office not having the information regarding this vehicle since it did not process the paperwork for it, even though this is a large nationwide company. This does not explain whether this company  gets the information for which the vehicle was totaled for any owner-retained vehicles and/or sends in this information to the state with the application for salvage title. The state says they don’t require it upon that application and only requires a statement of repairs for a rebuilt title. The issue here is whether those repairs have to correlate with what the insurance company has originally said needs to be made or if whether sufficient have been done is “merely” determined by the state inspector. Also that the only person who can request the inspection here is either the original owner; i.e. the actual title-holder or a licensed rebuilder, which means the person we’ve been dealing with is neither, therefore, cannot make the request, hence the issue we have. However,  that doesn’t seem to be much of an issue with him because in this state not every subsequent “owner” has to have the vehicle titled in his name; it can continue to be assigned until it is assigned to a licensed rebuilder to be inspected. However, that is the issue in this situation  with the vehicle being planned to be moved  to a state in which if it was totaled for hail damage because no repairs would have to be made, just needing that documentation. However, in that state subsequent owners do have to be titled unless, possibly, it is then assigned to a dealer, which is what led to the issue of the affidavit of correction.  So with that being determined  the information suddenly surfaced  – that the vehicle was totaled for collision. Wow, talk about a monkey wrench. Where did that come from? on the other hand, not really surprised, seems like often when you get into these situations things begin to be not as they seem when you start – not always, however, and with so much at stake it’s worth pursuing to see if we can find out what this is about. Could it be a simple coding error on the part of the insurance company or was there more to it? Of course, I’m not going to be given the insurance company’s name, so we’re back to square one. Except –

if it were indeed totaled for collision might not need documentation or if so, we have it right there so first, that being the case,

let’s contact the local dealer again that we know that I tried to contact yesterday. At least there were more people there today and I could actually talk to someone. However, with bringing up the hail damage issue, which getting a good title is still the goal, he was able to just dodge the issue until I got that resolved. So…

I thought I would just call the local insurance office where they said they have insurance now since I know they have a high risk component with the  possibility I misunderstood the “independent” part. - -    - only maybe I shouldn’t have been so concerned since I ran up on a traffic jam from a wreck on the bridge when I got there – oh, well, couldn’t have known that, then, except…but that’s another story I may tell somewhere in here

 

     And, yes, I know I should have pulled this info at the time but at the time I again, per later, should have known what I was going to run into re the DMV but again, how could I have, except to apply Murphy’s Law and be prepared for anything? guess I just hadn’t wanted to yet.

So anyway  I thought I would just call where I’d been told they’d moved only to be told they hadn’t – aargh! they just park around back and there’d been nobody there, but, maybe it was best anyway, because when I called and asked about the situation about the car she said that she had  gotten an e-mail from another office (?) about it, checked and didn’t have any information about that car but about one 4 years newer, hm…now, this means this is the correct  place of the insured so they should have the information on this vehicle as well so just asked them to  please doublecheck  a little deeper because they only check so deep at first so of course  when she just did, sure enough there it was, an accident report with the insurance companies name on it – but groan! oh groan! can you imagine – AIG – does anybody not know what that name has meant in the past few years? oh my, wait a minute I’ve only just started to swim – I’ve just found out where to swim – so we’ll start tomorrow because again it’s late in the day by this time because again I had other things to do in the middle. 

Rooting Out the Router Problem (and Modem too)

Okay finally got the phone issues (mostly) resolved only to be routed by the router (and modem) issues. We first thought it was the modem so went out to the local phone company and swapped it out which then shut down the laptop, which then made it seem as if it must be our router. So hub picked up a new one of those (same brand) and spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone with their tech support guy – in India – only to finally be told he must have a bad router – now at this point though I didn’t go into it all – this is how many? so let’s try a different brand – taking it back to the Big Box store – you know, the one with a greeter – who told him – sshh – to go to the other one – you know the one – where he got the kind we’d had before that we didn’t think worked but – hey, – you reach a point – brought it home – called up the local phone/internet tech support guys – let’s see, must have been his day off and not theirs then – local guys – oh, yea, when we changed out the modem it changed our IP address – plugged that in – we went through that last time and forgot – and back in business.  she had e-mailed me the title app but with all the computer issues wasn’t able to get it pulled off before  they decided they were just going to go ahead and do something else with the car anyway and he didn’t want it anyway but then of course he calls and changes his mind so I have to try to find out if they still have it which takes awhile but I do find out they do. Meanwhile, got the title app myself off the website not her e-mail still not sure exactly why but  got it anyway but then have to  get the title to go with everything else before we can get it all finalized. And what do have to do to get the title – get the moola – and guess what – he won’t send it – so now it has to go with the car – and who and how is it going to do that – well, he agreed to take it but he’s not going to drive it so he has to rent a trailer and truck and charge him for the expense and he refuses to pay, is willing to come get it, but wants him to knock his expense off the price of the car and he refuses to do that so we reach a stand-off but then he gives and is willing to come get it for the price – I mean, he’s getting a deal of a lifetime anyway – but he wants to make sure all the paperwork is in order for him to take it back local, turn it in, and walk away good to drive. So have to call the local and make sure everything have is good to go with them – which, of course, should have known, no, the Affidavit of Correction went to all the trouble to get is not the one they want – no, they want one from down here. Well, that doesn’t seem like it would be too bad – just run down to the local DMV office and pick one up, right? well, not this week – the local office shuts down and sends the local person to the county seat office; well, that’s not too bad, even if they do charge $1, that’s not bad. And certainly will have to do that if it has to be county specific to the county of the address of the title-holder listed on the front of the title. But the man we’re dealing with lives in a different county just over the line and would be long way around to him from that county DMV office so let’s call his county’s main DMV office and see; then realize they have a satellite office really handy to on my way to him that they say has them but it doesn’t take phone calls to be sure so I call the local funeral home (yea I know; I don’t know too many businesses out there; I’d been there to the funeral of the great-grandmother of a friend of younger son’s) to ask if they know. They tell have to wait until the owner comes in and he’ll have him call me, which he does. So in the meantime, since I may be having to go out there, I decide to check out  independent insurance agencies in the area online and get an address,  map, and directions for the only one from a business directory website and call but get a recording and I’m just not that familiar with the area, at least street names, to quite be able to understand the map and directions. So when the funeral home man calls I not only ask him about the local DMV office, which he says doesn’t have anything to do with titles;  however, the main county office says they do, so, now, since I’m going that way anyway check on I go ahead and ask him about the directions for this insurance agent’s address. He tells me I will turn at the Dippy Dots (umm, sounds good)  before I get to the big curve going to the DMV office, that it’s a total residential area. Well, maybe the guy works out of his house.  Okay, but I must have missed  it in trying to get to the DMV office but of course now get there right at lunch time, should have expected as much, and you never know about these small towns; they come out to smoke but no way are going to let me have the form and just be one my way so I go ahead and spend my time trying to check out the other, but going ahead and going on down the road thinking I’m getting my bearing from when I’d been there once before (a long time ago) to their library and thought I was told there was a road down that way. Anyway I end up finding a man out picking up cans – beautiful day, would much rather be outside working at home, like the guy I was doing all this for who was trying to sell this vehicle who wouldn’t do it himself; oh,well, it only has to be done if it’s going out of state. Anyway I find this man and he turned me around and sent me back up the road past the DMV office to the end of the road if I go straight then go down like I was going to begin with before I’d headed around the curve to the DMV office, which is actually where I was thinking from when I had been there before to the library; I just wasn’t sure anymore once I’d gotten to the DMV office. So I go that way as far as the gas station/convenience store and it’s time to get back to the DMV office, which, sure enough I get there just as they unlock the door from lunch.

But no way am I getting the form, they don’t just hand them out for you to fill them out yourself – you might not do it right and then it’s no good – they have to fill it out so they have to have the title or at least the info off it and why do you need one anyway? so when I start explaining how the guy signed it when he shouldn’t have then oh, no, it can’t be used for that anyway – after she calls downtown to be sure. She has to type up a special paper for him to sign and he has to be there for that himself with the title. Well, I can’t get in touch with him so I head out to go over there. But before I do I ask her about the address and directions to the independent insurance agent and from what she says it seems the first road is on the way to this man’s so I head out to get him to come there and, sure enough there’s the Dippy Dot,  except I lost the fact somewhere along the way that he had to be there so he texted me all the info off the title while I was trying to find the independent insurance agency the owner/title-holder had mentioned (which the actual road wasn’t too far away down this other road but I couldn’t find the actual address because it turned out I was looking for the wrong one since I hadn’t brought it with me since by the time I’d gotten it I, at least felt, needed to leave, which, since I got there right at lunch so then ended up doing all this running, really wasn’t true) which well, she really loved it when I took it back; she just does not understand why he’s not willing to let me have the title itself for her to get the info off of and then of course she’s upset because she says she told me he ended up having to be there after all. Well, he’s left home by that time without the title cause he wasn’t coming there since I’d told him he didn’t have to so he goes home to get the title and come. Meanwhile, as we go over the info he’s given the current title number and previous title number – wait a minute, why does it have a previous title number – oh, that’s because it’s a – what! – a salvage title?! – oh, no, can’t touch it – another phone call downtown – but wait, you don’t understand, oh, no, hope this is not a problem, but this car is going out of state – oh, really, you mean it’s not going to be our problem, well, we don’t have to type up this paper, he doesn’t have to come and here, take this form and be on your way, get out of our hair! But just to be nice she tells me (as opposed to not saying anything)  I might want to check with that state and just make sure you don’t need that paper after all; might want to call them. So I call the guy and tell him he doesn’t have to come after all, then call up there and get put back to the main asst. after they keep wanting to know who I talked with before – how am I supposed to know when they don’t tell me who I’m talking to? well, that’s why they really don’t like to give info over the phone; well, kinda hard to come in when I’m down here and they’re up there but they did tell me to fax a copy, front and back, of the title. So call the guy back and he now wants to run it on down to the  local DMV office for them to do so.  So while I’m calling to see if they can do that I stop at the local bank (and I still couldn’t tell you the name of it because it’s one I’m not familiar with but I should have taken it down as well) and they are so nice and look up this address so I run back down there and, sure enough, find it this time, but there’s a note on the door saying not to come without calling first and don’t do that before noon, which explains the recording earlier. And now the local DMV says they can’t (or won’t) do it so call him back and now he’s willing to run it down to a local gas station that has a fax machine. So while he’s doing that I go back to the bank and tell them what happened and they again are so nice to look up his phone number (which, of course, I also had not brought with me) for me to try to call him. When I do he has no idea what I’m talking about; he’s never sold insurance; he retired from a factory. He only says the sign up because he gots a lot of calls for some business that his number is close to and furthermore he has no idea how his name would have gotten on the website I got it from and wants it taken care of, so of course I don’t have it with me, either, but tell him when I get home I will look it up and try to let him know how to contact them to get it taken care of.  Then now when the out of state local DMV gets the faxed title then it’s blacked out the owner’s name so he can’t see it, which leaves the name of the company that processed the title, which he doesn’t even understand because the two states do things so very differently. Then he almost won’t do anything because it was a year ago yesterday that he signed it except he didn’t notice it was a year ago and thought he just signed it yesterday yet here we were today trying to say it was a mistake; no, it was a year ago, though it was kinda scary at first because he had just had it notarized a week or so ago but that apparently was also blacked out. So he was a little – okay, a lot – more willing then to go forward with it with it being a year ago but he still didn’t understand why he couldn’t just get it titled in his name. I told him that I had been told that they could if they would but they would just keep telling me they couldn’t and asked him if he wanted to see about it. No, not yet, anyway, without being able to see the owner’s name on the title. Now to muddy it even more, we were originally going to just get another in-state salvage title then work on the next step but they didn’t see the sense in doing that when they felt it wasn’t necessary. However, they didn’t know I’d already been told in order to go the next step either the vehicle had to be repaired – just not have to be by a professional – and he was going to do that anyway so I had at first not thought that would be a problem, or at least after I found that out – or be documented as to why it was salvaged, at least and especially in this case with it supposedly being just for hail damage because if so, it wouldn’t have to repaired at all. The problem with that being they kept saying it had to come from the insurance company which we didn’t know who that was ,which was why I’d been trying to find this independent insurance agent, which  didn’t work out anyway. I had contacted the owners and they didn’t remember who they had insurance with but would check with their independent insurance agent they had gotten it through because it was high riskand try to find out but they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to since they were longer insured with them. And of course they’d been closed for the holidays but now of course all that is over so  thought since I was there that I would check with the insurance office of the company that they said they have insurance with now since I knew they have a high risk component and also because I thought I remembered them being right up the main road from where I came into the area from but I didn’t see the sign so before I headed up there I checked with one of the local businesses right there (again, not that I had remembered them before I got there) and they said they had moved on down the road but the sign was still there for the old place so I thought I would run on down there to it and sure enough everything did look empty.  Not sure how checking with the insurance company will work out anyway; however, the local out of state DMV said there should be a “salvage pool” that should have the records. Not sure if that’s how it works here or not. It is true that when I called the state DMV to see about the records because they said they had a way of checking to see if what you put down was accurate that they did say they did but it was private information so not sure if that’s what he’s talking about or not and if so, if it’s just another difference between the states, so guess we’ll see tomorrow.

In the meantime, I also recontacted the person who handles these things who got me the out of state affidavit of correction and helped me get the title app and told her what was going on re wanting to do it through the local DMV and making sure everything was right. She did say then she felt the best way might be to go through a local dealer, then, that we knew.

So now actually in between the first contact with the out of state local DMV and being told needed the local – my state – Affidavit of Correction – I  began making attempt to contact a local dealer that we did know that son had actually bought his very first Honda from, which is now the one he has back that has the engine “blown” up in it, from, yes, the “friend” who had taken over payments on it and paid it off, at least, before he did it – and that’s a whole other story – that, yes, if I haven’t said it before (all this back and forth has my head in somewhat of a spin but somewhere I mentioned the actual title-holder not understanding us needing the documentation because she thought we were only wanting this one for the motor but it doesn’t work in his so that is why we need this whole vehicle) he would like to have one for to see if we could go through him, especially since he somewhat knew the story, anyway, since it was quite a unique situation at the time. However, there was only one person there that day and he was actually buying a vehicle so not a good time to try to talk to them about something like this and I needed to leave to go ahead and go to the local DMV office since he was wanting to go ahead and come down as soon as we got everything in order – should have known. 

In the meantime more rooting and routing.

Mistakes don’t have to be forever

Wow – between my phone issues and those of the company I mentioned in the earlier post that deals with the DMV we’ve had quite a time but we finally managed to get a fax of the Affidavit of Correction saying that the car was misassigned and reassigning it to my son and get it signed by the original assignee to that. I’m so glad he’s here this week – was able to just meet him at that big box of Wal store – was pretty scary though since he lives over the mountain so of course wanted to meet at that one since that’s where he shops but the normal road that we would take from where we would normally be in town 2 girls got killed on this week so I wasn’t too keen on going that route especially when I don’t really like taking that road anyway for just that reason. When hub and I went out it the other day to look at the car it just scared me to be seemingly that close to the edge of that mountain with nothing to stop you from going off all the way down to the valley and that’s not quite what happened but way too close for comfort. Of course I’m not quite sure why we took that road; since I was with him and he normally just goes to town and takes the quickest, shortest route and he was driving I really didn’t think that much about it, but normally if I’m driving it I would have taken the river road; I don’t know, somehow I just feel safer; I know others (like my sister-in-law) who would not want to be that close to water but maybe it’s because I was raised more around water than on a mountain but today I’d found myself on the other side and just not thinking about the fact that I didn’t need to take that road anyway until I was talking with the guys at the bike shop I happened to find mayself at about having to go  and the one mentioned going over the mountain the scenic route and taking the curvearound road – well, duh, yea, that’s the road you get to on the other one and I was already on the other side of it anyway, but I didn’t really want to have to go over the mountain, when the other guy mentioned the fact that the road was just down the road from where I was – well yeah duh, so off I trotted, no biggie or at least not as big as the other one would have been, just made a big curve instead of going straight which was just nice, little longer but nicer and, once again, passed yet somewhere else I’ve been trying to get to, but at least passed it – seems like I usually go around it one way or the other – but still seems never have time to stop, this time needing to get back to meet hub for our annual Christmas concert – so maybe another time – anyway offtrack – got the Affidavit signed.

Now we just need to get the application for new title – new salvage title, that is.

More tilting at windmills

Back to somewhat the beginning of this blog – with my oldest son -

Only this time it’s a car

He got on Craigslist and found a car down here where I live (remember – or did I ever say this? – that we don’t live in the same state) – now, why, I don’t know – but anyway,  what appeared to be a good deal – except, always, you know – there was a problem with the title – it has a salvage title – well, normally no problem, right, you get fixed whatever’s wrong, get a rebuilt title, and go on with your life.

Now the guy first said the insurance (?) did fix what was wrong – now, wait, they fixed it? but then got a salvage title issued? no, turned out no, they didn’t fix it – so why did he say they did – well, it turns out it wasn’t his car at the time – oh, wait, another big deal. If it had been, then yes, no problem – now – because they just changed that law last year – that if it is, then you can just get it fixed, get a rebuilt title, and go on with your life   – but – if it isn’t – then – oh, no, – you have to get a rebuilder’s license (assuming of course, that you can, but that’s another whole deal) that costs $1000 + a $10,000 bond +? garage liability insurance in order to be able to get the car repaired?! Yes, in my state. Now, let me say this car is “only” salvaged for hail damage – yes, just hail damage, just cosmetic, no road or driveable problems at all – but also no exceptions in my state. Now my son’s state does make exceptions for hail damage – the car would be branded as such, would not have to be repaired, just have it inspected – no rebuilder’s license required – and go on with your life.

There is also one other route to go to be able to get a rebuilder’s title in my state, which is actually the more common route; after all, how many people go through the hassle of obtaining their own rebuilder’s license? No, they go through an already established rebuilder. And (or should I say but and therein lies the rub – oh groan) yes, you have to sign the title over to them. Now, as I said, this is quite common but it does involve some trust and/or possibly some documentation that when the process is all over they will sign it back over to you, which seems to  possibly be the issue in this situation. Seems as if the man didnt know any – therefore know any he trusted – to go through.

So what’s the problem then, you say? well, in my state if it wasn’t in your name at the time and you don’t follow all those above steps you can’t get it titled in your name, which normally even in my son’s state would make it impossible to resell it – unless – you happen to have not ever signed the back of the title taking possession of the vehicle. However, in this case, he did do that not knowing all of these ramifications – first of all, never noticing the title said salvage – wonderful fine print, you know – then not knowing what that meant when he had it pointed out to him – at the courthouse when he went to get it titled. It’s possible the people he bought it from didn’t know to tell him for it’s quite common for the insurance companies to not tell anybody themselves – surprise, right. However, it turned out there was more to that story. But for now, let’s segue into our going to see the car.

Hub and I went out there on a fine – but cold – beautiful Saturday and looked and he drove the car. The guy told us that the driver’s side door had been dented up pretty bad and his daughter’s boyfriend had taken it and beaten hit back out and it appeared to us he apparently had done a pretty good job; you could tell it had a dent but it did not really look bad at all. However, since the car was supposedly only totaled for hail damage, therefore that not really having anything to do with any of the legalities, we really didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to any of the details regarding it. Did you catch that?

Also son’s state is a notary state – titles have to notarized in order to be transferred. Now my state is not but son of course wanted to have the title notarized which in my state, of course, is no problem, so the guy goes right down and gets it done, but of course only his signature because of course he’s the only one there, which really isn’t or shouldn’t be a problem because son hasn’t signed it yet – except even I’m not really sure how he did that because I didn’t see anywhere on the title for it to be done my state not requiring it, you see, but it turns out that a salvage title in my state doesn’t follow the regular rules regarding assigning to subsequent owners, which normally can’t be done unless they are dealers,  so it could be signed and notarized in the dealer place. However, I made contact with a company that specializes in these types of cases and she said there’s an affidavit that can be filled out, signed, and notarized stating that he didn’t take possession of the vehicle – yes, even though he had signed the back of that title, which normally would mean in the out of state state it would have to be titled in his name, which of course is the issue in getting it done in this state.  And, yes, technically it really should not be done that way since he does have possesssion of the vehicle. She did say the other way was to go through a dealer, which she works with,  but she felt she’d rather handle this directly going this way.   I was going to try to explain this to him, but of course that would be when I would have phone issues and be leaving, etc., but since I didn’t think he would be able to get the title done, I thought I’d be able to work it out, but then he said he was able to, so I didn’t get it done, but at least he will be here all week. He normally works out of state during the week so he can only take care of these types of things on the weekend so then only on Saturday mornings when the places that do it are open.

So I will get back with them and let them know; I should have already but these phone issues are making it difficult but we’ll work it out somehow.

We’ll see.