Your adjuster found repaired or unrepaired previous damage to your vehicle?

Your adjuster found repaired or unrepaired previous damage to your vehicle?

In principle, this is no cause for concern. However, some motor vehicle liability insurers use these findings to (initially) defer settlement of a claim.

Repaired previous damage - Where does it come from?

The motor vehicle liability insurers rely here on a statutory provision (Section 249 (1) of the German Civil Code), which states the following:

"Whoever is obligated to pay damages shall restore the condition that would exist if the circumstance obligating compensation had not occurred."

The insurance company then proceeds according to the motto: If I do not know how the previous damage was repaired (high quality or low quality), then I also do not know what condition the vehicle was in before it was damaged and accordingly cannot determine how much money must be spent to restore it to its original condition.

Is the motor vehicle liability insurance allowed to do this?

It depends on the situation of the individual case and several factors: Total loss or repair damage? Fictitious or actual settlement? Are the repaired previous damage and the new damage on the same component? Am I even aware of the repaired previous damage? Can I present a repair invoice for the repaired previous damage?

We will be happy to advise you on your specific case free of charge at any time.

Does the motor vehicle liability insurance examine the individual case?

No! At least at the beginning, most motor vehicle liability insurers do not check the individual case at all, but simply send out a standard letter on the subject of previous damage without carrying out a precise check. In such standard letters, the motor vehicle liability insurers then like to refer to decisions from case law, which are supposed to apply to your case - but in most cases they do not.

Many injured parties who are not represented by experts will probably give up at this point. This is also the goal of the motor vehicle liability insurers!

We will deal with the general - and usually wrong - objections of the motor vehicle liability insurers and take a detailed position vis-à-vis the insurance company. Often, the insurance company then agrees and the damage is settled after all.

Unrepaired previous damage - what about unrepaired previous damage to my vehicle?

Here, too, many motor vehicle liability insurers attempt to reject settlement of the claim if the old damage is located in or near the area of damage.

What is the insurance based on in these cases?

In these cases, the motor vehicle liability insurers like to take the position that it is not possible to distinguish between the unrepaired previous damage and the new damage and therefore the amount of damage cannot be determined.

Is the insurance company allowed to do that?

Here, too, it depends on the individual case. In the vast majority of cases, it is easy to distinguish between the two and this is already recognizable to the layman. The objections of the motor vehicle liability insurers in these cases are therefore groundless.

Does the motor vehicle liability insurance examine the individual case?

No! Even in the case of unrepaired previous damage, insurance companies do not check the individual case and fall back on the standard letter. Basically, the motor vehicle liability insurers send out the same standard letter for both repaired previous damage and unrepaired previous damage (although completely different requirements apply for unrepaired and repaired previous damage). This already shows that the motor vehicle liability insurers do not initially take the trouble to check the individual case.

Conclusion.

Ultimately, the insurance company may only refuse to settle on the basis of prior damage in very special situations.

As experts, we are very familiar with the strategies of motor vehicle liability insurers. Therefore, we can help you to assert a claim even in difficult situations.

PS:

By the way, the expert has done a good job and rightly included the previous damage in the damage report. If he does not do this and it subsequently turns out that there is prior damage to the vehicle (for example, by querying the HIS damage system), this not only gives the insurance company the impression of an intention to defraud, but you also lose a very important privilege in the event of legal proceedings: the court will no longer estimate the damage in accordance with § 287 ZPO (German Code of Civil Procedure), which in some cases leads to the claim being dismissed for lack of the opportunity to present it. All this sounds very theoretical and technical, but in practice it plays a very important role.