Has anyone here ever taken a diminished value claim to court? My wife got hit in her new Tahoe with only 4k miles on it. Damage was mostly cosmetic to the lift gate, bumper, and a new impact bar. I think the total was around 5k in repairs and the other driver's insurance covered the repairs. We had an appraisal done and the appraiser's diminished value opinion was $6,600. The insurance offered nothing at first, then they offered $1,000. I countered and they are holding firm as a "courtesy" as they say because the damage was mostly cosmetic. I'm not sure why that is relevant. There is no chance that we wouldn't get dinged for the accident if we sold it or traded it in, so I'm tempted to file a small claims case against them. Have any of you taken it that far? Part of me wants to because the insurance company thinks I won't, and the other part is that I'm pretty confident that we would win.

Some of greatest accomplishments in life came by being a persistent PITA to someone that didn't want to make something right.

I say go for it!

I have not used this company so this is not an endorsement, but I have read a lot about Collision Safety Consultants. For 600.00 fee, they will fight the insurance company for maximum payment on Diminished Value Claims. For me, it would be worth a try not to have to deal with small claims court, but that's just me. They have people all over the country.

collisionsafetyconsultants.com

If anyone has any experience with these guys, please chime in.

I see their success stories all the time on Facebook, but at same time how many failing claims do they have as well? I'd ask them how fee works if they don't get anything extra than what insurance's offer was.