In the six weeks since our wreck, my wife and I have compiled a journal consisting of every medical appointment, each therapy visit, court dates for the other driver, eager lawyers who call and want to "help" and every conversation and meeting with one of the three insurance companies involved. Not to mention the hours upon hours on line and 'umpteen' miles driven to find a suitable replacement for our beloved Tahoe, a vehicle that was a three month search when it was purchased.
If you need to file for "Loss of Wages" in the state of Kentucky on an insurance claim, be prepared to go broke. The law only requires compensation of $5.00 per hour. That's right, no typo...5 bucks! It doesn't matter how much you actually earn. You have the option to purchase additional coverage prior to a claim through your auto policy (which I have now added). So for all of you with poor math skills, that is $200 per week in compensation, MAX. To get this windfall of cash, it is as easy as filling out a form supplied by the paying insurance company, oh, and a form from your doctor to prove you are under their care and for how long, oh yeah, and a form from your employer proving you are employed and for what amount. Then send them via snail mail to some far off state where it will be reviewed. "Your compensation will arrive soon, thank you."
Another note to this story, if you have never heard of "Gap Insurance", check into it. Especially if you owe on your car or if it is a late model. Gap insurance would have paid the additional $2,100 difference in what my loan was for and what the insurance company legally gave me for my total loss.
Total loss, hmmm. Plus $2,100 I still owe on the Tahoe that I will never see again and the difference of $200 that I will be recieving for loss of wages each and the money I actually make.
To say this is frustrating is a gross understatement.
I'm going to take a pill and go to bed, my head hurts.
Lance, it's annoying but you're so lucky. My grandparents died in a car crash in 2000. Even though they were old--by virtue of being my grandparents!--it still is a sobering reminder that the niggling nasties of being alive are nothing compared with the alternative. When the paperwork becomes too much, just remember that!
ReplyDeleteYour words have not fallen on deaf ears.
ReplyDeleteI, too, lost my grandparents in an auto accident. The day after Christmas 1999.
My grandfather had a torn valve in his heart from the impact and actually died about two weeks later.
Our recent accident stirred much emotion from me after reliving a part of that (my wife now has a heart murmur as a result of this).