Complaint Review: Harleysville Insurance - Nationwide

If you have been in an auto accident, prepare yourself for more Pain & Suffering from the insurance company. This is how it works: The insurance company will intentionally use ‘Holdbacks’ to reduce the amount of damages in hopes it will get overlooked and many independent body shops will not take the time to send in a ‘Supplement’ to cover additional work not listed on the insurance estimate. Is this fair? NO, it benefits the insurance company by cheating their own customers.

On the 4^th day of July 2014, a beat up Honda Civic attempted a U-Turn directly in front of my vintage Mercedes. The kid driving someone else’s car rammed into the side of my luxury sedan causing damage from the headlight to the rear tire. An attorney informed me this kid does not even have a driver’s license from information on the court records database.  

After writing the DMV to obtain the insurance information of this other vehicle, Harleysville Insurance Company contacted me about a claim. The scope of damage report was generated on 08/01/2014 by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. The insurance adjuster argued with me that some of the damages to the side of my car are not related to the collision damage (In her Opinion) and insisted that I was misinformed about proper repair procedures and the cost of service work to this type of vehicle.

• Nationwide refused to replace the right front tire that has cuts and other abrasions in the sidewall from the other vehicle ramming their bumper into the tire. This creates a safety concern and any tire damage is grounds to get a REJECTION STICKER under the Virginia Auto Safety Program.
• The RF wheel is also damaged and Nationwide expects a cheap knock-off wheel to be a suitable replacement for an OEM wheel that was just reconditioned to very good OEM condition. The Mercedes dealership quoted me $930 plus tax for an OEM wheel, Nationwide Insurance offered me $189 insisting this alloy wheel is Like-Condition-Quality (LCQ).
• Nationwide also quoted $69.95 for a two-wheel alignment and insisted that any alignment shop can do this work. Every local shop contacted has insisted their facility does not have the tools, equipment required, lacks the training, and does not stock required materials necessary to perform a wheel alignment on any European vehicle.
• The estimate written by Nationwide also refused to properly repair or replace the fender that was damaged both in front of the tire and behind the tire. The claims adjuster insisted that body filler would be as good as a fender with no prior damage. It’s very likely that vibration from the diesel engine will cause the plastic body filler to crack and fall out of this fender.
• Both doors were pushed in and the body line is no longer straight. These doors had no prior collision damage and the paint was polished to a mirror like finish. The estimate states there are dents all over the car, which certainly is not true.
• This car has plastic moldings on the lower part of the fender and both doors. These moldings are scraped up and the chrome inserts have permanent damage from the car scraping their bumper along the side of the car. After the body shop worked on the car, these plastic moldings remain scraped up, loose with bent buckled up ends from the collision. If you look down the side of this car, it is easy to see the wavy moldings with raised ends that were never considered in the initial estimate because the claims adjuster stated “The shop can buff that out.”

Harleysville Insurance closed the file and the property damage is still unresolved. I took the car to another shop to get an independent estimate to fix these moldings. The shop insisted these plastic moldings cannot be repaired and all the mounting hardware needs replacement to fix the loose condition. All the chrome inserts will also need to be replaced because the shop cannot remove and reinstall them because the metal is warped and impossible to work with. The estimate for this work is $1.530.00 and their shop is located 73 miles away according to mapping software.

There is a reason that all the commercials are on television indicate Insurance Companies take advantage of their customers with unreasonable offers to settle accident claims. Harleysville paid $1693.00 in property damage and reports this is more than fair. The new estimate to properly repair the lower moldings is $1,530 (the first estimate allowed less than one-hour labor for polishing only).  An OEM replacement wheel was quoted at $930, insurance paid $189; a discrepancy of -741.00 plus applicable sales tax. The tire that was also cut will cost an additional $80 for replacement; it was in like new condition with less than 1/32 tread-wear. The dealership quoted me $150 for the wheel alignment; insurance only paid $69.95 for this work.  

Property damage not paid by insurance totals $2,431.00 and does not cover transportation costs to take the car to a qualified shop for repair. Harleysville has never considered “Inherent Diminished Value” as part of my claim.