The Car Saga

So, way back in January, an old man backed into my car causing over $2ooo in damage. I had the body work fixed in March, but the insurance people "forgot" to check out why my headlights were not working right.

After I got the car back, and realized the lights still weren't working, I called my insurance contact and asked him about it. He basically told me: "Oh, yeah. We forgot. Well, now you need to take it to a dealership and have it hooked up to a computer to see if it is, in fact, accident-related before I'll pay for it. Yes, we should have done this during the 3 weeks we had the car, but too late now, so it's on your dime."

With this response, I said to him: "Do you find this to be acceptable? Would you be happy with this service?" After a long pause, he responded: "No." and proceeded to try to find a way to get it fixed. The resolution was to bring the car to his location/repair shop and have his guys look at it, but his guys never called me back (this was at the end of April).

Finally, after the headlights stopped working completely, I called him earlier this week. He remembered me (it's been a month since we last spoke) and said he would get on it. I got a rental car, his repair shop looked at it, and his mechanic said it was a multi-function switch needing replaced and it probably was not accident-related... so far $398 in repair costs.

Great. We really need that $400+ for moving expenses - not repairs.

I got a call a little bit ago... the insurance guy is planning to pay for it!

I'm not sure why they plan to cover these repairs, but hopefully it's because I didn't resort to being mean and rude. I'd like to think there are people out there who will repay kindness with kindness, and not just reward the bad behavior.