Diminished Value of Georgia has reached a milestone; Press-Release
Loss in value, otherwise known as Diminished Value, is the reduction in resale value vehicles suffer after being repaired from an accident or collision.
When shopping for a vehicle, auto buyers seldom pay the same amount for a wrecked and repaired vehicle compared to an undamaged counterpart. By law, insurance carriers are required to compensate, in cash, for this loss in resale value as part of the property damage claim.
According to Diminished Value of Georgia, for more than ten years, insurance carriers have been underpaying diminished value claims by quantifying the loss amount using an erroneous and inaccurate formula called 17c.
This percentage based formula yields values much lower than the actual loss saving carriers millions of dollars that should have went to accident victims.
The 17c formula, named after paragraph 17 of the Mabry v State Farm court case (Georgia Supreme Court FILE NO. SU 99 CV 4915, 12/01/00), caps the loss in value at 10% of the vehicle’s book value. “Not only is 10% arbitrary and too low, it could not logically apply to all makes and models,” says Tony Rached, chief appraiser at Diminished Value of Georgia. “It is irrational to maintain that a Ferrari will lose the same percentage as a Kia for a given accident. The formula doesn’t stop here, after the initial 10%, the formula deducts for random damage modifiers and unreasonable mileage restrictions.”
To help claimants achieve fair settlements, Diminished Value of Georgia provides accurate vehicle valuation reports that properly quantify the loss in value a client’s automobile suffers after an accident.
Appraisal reports provided by Diminished Value of Georgia get submitted to insurance carriers who, by law, are required to consider them as evidence in the claim.
So far in 2013, Diminished Value of Georgia has helped consumers achieve an estimated 8.2 million dollars in insurance settlement increase. Read DVGA’s client reviews.
“The majority of our appraisal reports are somewhere in between 3 and 4 thousand dollars,” says Tony Rached, the company owner, “compared to the 2 to 3 hundred dollars normally offered by the insurance company.”
Mr. Rached continues by saying, “Our appraisals are, by far, the most effective way in increasing a claimant’s insurance payout.”
As licensed appraisers, Diminished Value of Georgia can only collect a flat upfront fee for their appraisal service; “Insurance companies know who the legitimate and unbiased appraisers are” says Lindsey Burns, client services manager at DVGA, “this is one of the reasons our clients collect the highest settlement rate in the industry”, she adds.
When checking Diminished Value of Georgia’s BBB profile, you will find no complaints and an A rating, something very rare in the automotive world.
