Location: Texas
My car got hit while parked I was in a store. I took my car in and my insurance got me set up with a rental car. A couple days later I get a call from an investigator saying that have pictures of my car (literally stalking us with cameras around cities) showing it had previous damage, which it did but was cosmetic (vs my bumper sagging after being hit). I was told my claim was under investigation that took about a week. This week they let me know there is another investigation going on with their special investigation unit and sent me a reservation of rights that only included their misrepresentation stuff.
They aren’t updating me. My car is at the shop ready completely waiting on USAA for the OK to pick up. My girl at the car shop says that she seen this before and she thinks they’re going between saying it was pre-damaged which would make my deductible $500 or that it was truly damaged from the hit-and-run which would make my deductible 250. But why would they spend all this time and energy over $250? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just let me pick up the car and return my rental car so that they don’t have to pay for another two weeks of rental car? Meanwhile, I’m in a rental car all of these days that I can’t afford without insurance covering. I’m scared that they’re going to try to claim that I am misrepresentation my claim and therefore they have to pay none of my claim, which is only about $2000 plus whatever the rental car is. I’m 24 years old and have never done anything like this before so I genuinely don’t know what I’m doing, and I have zero dollars to go towards this.
I feel like my life is on hold and there’s no timeline and no information being given to me by USAA. I talked to a friend that you used to work with them and she told me that I should probably get a lawyer. Why would they spend so much time in energy on a claim that’s just under $2000?