Today, after a protracted and rather tedious process, I finally picked up my settlement check for the totalled Endo Adventure Van V1.5. The accident was February 25th. It took over two weeks after that, just to get an appraiser out to the little Virginia town where the carcass lay.

Since then, I’ve been chasing my local claims adjuster to get me an actual cash value settlement offer that was even in the ballpark.

First, they offered a rather insulting number that was $3,500 less than I paid for the van just 2 years ago. I demanded justification for that valuation and explained that it was extremely low.

Then, I asked about covering the upgrades that I had installed. They weren’t going to cover any of it. After a couple of days dealing with the branch manager, I got him to consider those upgrades that I was unable to salvage and i provided him with a list of just the physical items that I had added to the van and was not able to strip out when I gutted it after the wreck – not considering all the labor that went into it. That list was nearly $3k.

Later, they came back with an offer that was… Closer, but still no cigar.

Frustrated, I put in the work that they should have put in and found a dozen comparables, three of which were within 200 miles of Toledo. All of them were priced at Continue reading →