bumper/lip damage: to claim or not?
 

The other day I was driving on the highway and hit something like a rock or piece of firewood that fell off of a truck in front of me and busted off most of the clips to my stock front lip/valence and took some paint off of it and my front bumper. Now the lip is partially loose and "talking" where you can see a gap between it and the bumper, which also has some paint removed where the impact was.

My front bumper has a good number of chips, and the current stock lip is not really salvageable unless it's thoroughly bondoed to smooth out the scratches and then permanently attached using some strong permanent adhesive.


I started to file a claim with my insurance but am not sure it if is worth it, because I am worried about my premium going up after the repair. My deductible is $250, and I pay a LOT for insurance on this car and feel like I should be able to cash in on the coverage I pay so much for. I am pretty sure replacing the lip and repainting the bumper will be much more than my deductible, but it's only worth it if my premium doesn't go up after the repair to make it a better idea to just pay out of pocket.

A friend of mine owns a good body shop, but my insurance doesn't have him as one of their authorized shops or whatever. Now they want me drop it off at a local Chevy dealer's autobody dept. later this week. I honestly don't trust most auto businesses around here, and don't want them dicking around with my car.

I don't know what do do. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of scenario and have any advice? I don't want to end up with even more expensive insurance that will end up being more than the cost of the rpair out of pocket at my friend's shop, since he would probably give me a good deal.

not worth it. you get a CF replica for around $300 or so, and prob a used OEM lip for $100 off some member. definately not worth it. I only claimed my lip once, and it was cause of road construction and I filed it with the contracting company not my own insurance.

either way, its not going to be much over $250, so you'll be paying most of it, and your insurance will have your claim on record. If your whole front end was gone... that would be a different story, or at least a hood which is $800 or so

claim

A fellow member, Street Tuners, recently had a similar incident. The immediate visible damage was the front passenger lip. It was broken about 6" in from the wheel well.

However, after getting the insurance company to look at it, they said to replace the bumper (damaged where the lip mounts), lip, oil cooler (bent), under tray (broken), FMIC (dented), LICP (dented) and a few other parts along with repainting the entire front end.

I'll say that the repair estimate was worth the claim ... from the prices I've seen for OEM parts, the bumper, lip and under tray alone are worth the claim after the deductible.

Can you please elaborate on your resoning?

Those are good considerations Touring Bubble, thanks.
I should probably also mention that I have already had the under-tray busted up and removed from a previous incident, and already replaced the driver's side LICP from another incident, and didn't even think about filing for those due to the same insurance concerns I previously mentioned in addition to the fact that I kind of wrote off the under tray removal as eventually inevitable (it breaks so easily and it a PITA), and I found a replacement LICP (wrong model year though :( ) for $50, and $50 beats $250 deductable.

if just a bumper or lip i wouldnt claim it.not worth the insurance to go up and deal with a claim. take it someone you trust and unfortuanetly spend the money. sorry to here about ur mishaps. good luck

yeah, although i have started the claim, i'm thinking about cancelling it and paying out of pocket. being without my car, driving a rental, paying the deductible etc. is a PITA, so I might just get my own replacement lip and deal my my buddy to fix it. insurance can be such a rip off unless you total a vehicle. I think i'll raise my deductible too, i feel like i'm wasting money. :mad:

It doesn't hurt to contact your rep about this. try to build a rapport. Once you get to know your rep, usually they'll let you know off the record if it's worth a claim or not.

claim and then buy a cf or another aftermarket lip.........

It you really hit a log or something in the road it should be covered by your comprehensive policy and should be considered a "no-fault" accident. This should not affect your rates. This may vary by state though ... ask your agent.

Thanks for the replies. You are correct touring bubble. I talked to my local rep who was really cool. He mentioned that in other states it would be worth claiming as a no-fault accident, but here, it's always considered at-fault unless another party has been identified to be at fault, and because my policy is 2 months from renewal, no changes to the premium would happen this THIS premium, but would defnitely appear upon renewal, and it's very hard/possibly intentionally vague and uncertain how much it would go up after that. He said he personally wouldn't file a claim whose repair costs are under $1000-1200. That basically validates all points toward not filing the claim.

I'd probably claim it to pay for the bumper repaint and get a CF lip out of the deal.

tell your insurance company where you are taking it, they can't tell you where to go or what brand replacement parts to use.

Usually the insurance company gives you a grace of $400/yr. If you go over that your premium goes up unless you are on one of those plans like the accident forgiveness from allstate. I would think that this could easily go over that.

5 years ago in my ford escort I bumped a '92 S10 at a stop sign and put a 1/4" dent in the bumper. The guy claimed it for $1400 and I paid about $6500 extra in insurance for it over the next 3 years owning a DSM with a 1 ticket record (male under 25). I can't even imagine a claim on my evo right now with $4k/yr insurance on a clean record.

In the end, if you really want to claim it have the registered repair shop give your insurance company the estimate. The insurance co will cut you a check and you can have your buddy fix it and keep the change (hoping that it is less than your raise in premium), or just have the shop who looked at it fix it (I wouldn't do that personally, the chevy dealer doesn't know evos and isn't going to be cheap).

repair out of pocket= $200-400 lip replacement, + ~ $200 repaint bumper
= ~ $400-600

claim= automatically at (my) fault accident in NM. deductible= $250. premium increase due to filing at (my) fault accident= $ who knows?

Unfortunately, this makes me think it's safer to pay the extra $150 to fix out of pocket to make sure my insurance does not go up who knows how much for who knows how long. I'll spend the money in the short term, to keep the power in the long term, not give up the long term power to save the money in the short-term.

That is probably what I would do. Its a damn racket, isn't it?