My husband bought a new Aerio sedan, white this time. My husband wrecked the car on Friday. By Wednesday, we had the deposit on a new car! Progressive rocks!

We also have the honor of being the first people to wreck a 2003 Aerio. This might be true or not, but that’s what the Progressive adjuster said. He said they didn’t have the value of the car in their database.

We got lucky. Progressive said since we had made only ONE car payment, they would pay the manufacturers’ suggested retail price of the vehicle, based on our purchase agreement, rather than the street value of the car (which they didn’t have in their database anyway). Basically that meant we got reimbursed for the total value of the car instead of the value minus his trade in, minus the dealer’s rebate! Woohoo! Once again, I feel lucky and blessed.

Then we went to the Suzuki dealer and told them we wanted the exact same numbers we had on the blue Aerio and we got it, except that the interest rate went up fractionally. I’m sure the dealer made a killing because 2003s are being slashed to make room for 2004s. The car payment is basically $2.00 higher than it was before, and the interest rate increase won’t add up to much over the life of the loan (look at all the big grown up words I’m using! Life of the loan! Hee). Everyone made out like a bandit except for the insurance company, who shouldered the cost of this whole thing.

We learned about the whole “did your airbags go off” thing. Inflated airbags show the impact of the crash, but they also are very expensive to replace. By law, they have to be replaced by the car manufacturer and they cost like $4-5K. By law, if repairs to your car cost over 75 percent of the car’s original value, then the car is considered total, because the damage is structural. So, if the airbags blow, and the cost of replacing them is so high, then it’s a good indicator that your car is totaled.

And, last but not least: When he went to view the crash site, the insurance adjuster ran the very same stop sign.

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