At this point I decided to stop fighting with the Insurance company, it was abundantly evident that facts did not matter if they cast doubt upon the validity of the CCC Market Value report and the insurance company was going to adhere to the value proposed by CCC no matter what.

That’s an important point to understand because ultimately the vehicle owner is entering a contract with the Insurance carrier, CCC merely provides a report suggesting what they think the insurance company should pay.  This is akin to a person buying a house, a home appraiser provides a suggested value of the property but a buyer can offer to pay whatever they want.  Likewise the Insurance company will pay out what they want to for a loss claim, CCC is merely providing a recommended amount.  In my situation with the abundance of evidence illustrating the shoddy manner in which CCC came to their market valuation for my car I was incensed at the Insurance company fools completely discounting facts I was putting before them.

When I tried to call and speak to a supervisor level employee the underling I got stuck talking to merely exacerbated the situation when they admitted to often disagreeing with the values CCC provided but having no recourse to do anything about the improper valuations sometimes provided.  Aside from the factual errors to the valuation reports were the dismissals of my concerns which was equally infuriating.  Again the underling did not help the situation when they informed me that all policy holders received this type of treatment, even those who had been with the company thirty years.  Lovely, I could expect to dutifully pay my premiums for decades and when the time came for the company to hold up its end of the bargain I could expect to receive such crappy service.

Getting nowhere with the Insurance company, and not needing to settle the matter right away, I decided to forget about it for a while.

Next: Re-engaging

The letter I submitted to my Insurance carrier raising concerns about the quality of the CCC market analysis.

Subj: CCC Market Value Report Errors

During a phone call with T.H. on November 15, 2012 I raised a concern about an adjustment that was made to each of the three comparable vehicles involving Privacy Glass. This adjustment caused each of the comparable vehicles to have their value reduced by $70, which would then reflect as a reduction in the valuation of the loss vehicle.

My concern was how the determination had been made that each of these vehicles has Privacy Glass installed. None of the listings for the comparable vehicles provided by CCC makes mention of the vehicles being equipped with Privacy Glass.

When Rebecca from CCC was contacted to help address the concern she stated that CCC looked at the pictures provided with the listings. I asked how they could be sure Privacy Glass was installed on the vehicles when some of the listings did not provide images sufficient to evaluate the window tinting. At that point Rebecca became indignant and stated that if I was concerned about a $70 item they would adjust the valuation upward.

Because Rebecca had done nothing but exacerbate my concern about the care being given to my claim, and because of the inappropriate manner in which she was addressing me, I requested T. remove Rebecca from the conference call.

I reiterated my concerns to T. and pointed to comparable 3 from the CCC Valuescope report as an example. The Listing Description for comparable 3 makes no mention of Privacy Glass or even Tinted Windows. In the Vehicle Modification sidebar of the advertisement Tinted Windows is listed. The listing provides a single photo of the automobile, shown below.

It is quite obvious from looking at the listing photograph of comparable 3 that determining that the vehicle is equipped with Privacy Glass from that image is not possible. If anything, the view through the vehicle and out the back window suggests that if there is tinting on the rear window it is light, as the objects behind the vehicle can easily be seen through the window.

When I pointed these facts out to T. and explained my concern I was assured that CCC’s report was accurate. Being told a report is correct when all evidence suggests contrary is not something that builds my confidence in USAA. When I asked what would be done if it was determined that the vehicle did not have Privacy Glass I was told that speculating about that situation would not be done.

I then contacted the seller of comparable 3 and inquired about the type of Window Tinting on the car, if it was dark and would be considered Privacy Glass. The response from the seller of comparable 3 is shown below. (In the letter I provided a screen shot of the conversation I had with the vehicle seller)

The response from the seller is: “Its 30-35%. Not too dark.” There should be no question that comparable 3 does not have Privacy Glass, contrary to what the CCC Valuescope report states.

My primary concern about the Loss Unit Value being presented to me is the manner in which the value has been arrived at, and specifically about errors that exist in the report. A growing concern is the attitude being taken by USAA employees toward me about my concerns. I have a sense that USAA is more concerned with quickly settling the claim rather than providing a correct value for the loss vehicle.

As I have shown above, the facts make valid my concern about errors in the report. I will provide USAA with a summary of the errors and discrepancies I have found in the CCC report for review.

Next: Step Away

By this stage of the process my Insurance company was not exactly prompt in responding to my correspondence, in fact I doubt I would have received a response at all to the concerns I raised.  I called a couple of days later to ask pointed questions about the market valuation, such as how they could determine the condition of a vehicle they had never seen, how they could be sure the aftermarket components were on a car they’d never seen, and why some of the valuations were so far out of whack.

The answers from the Insurance representative were always the same, that CCC was in the business of doing vehicle valuations and knew what they were doing.  This pass the buck mentality combined with the absolute belief that CCC could do no wrong was infuriating in the face of the evidence I had provided.  One of the most egregious challenges to common sense was the value that CCC gave to the comparables for having “privacy glass”, a heavy tint that was considered more valuable than the regular tining that my car had.  I wanted to know how they had determined that the comparables were equipped with privacy glass when all they had to go off of was an Internet advertisement that made no mention of the vehicles having privacy glass.  I was told that they looked at the pictures posted with the ads and made the determination from those pictures.

This answer was absurd since the pictures in the advertisements did not show the car in a way that would enable a person to make this determination.  The insuarnce person told me that they would get someone from CCC on the call to answer my questions.  When they did come on the line and I asked about the window tinting, and they gave the same answer, I pointed out that in the case of one car there was a single photo included with the advertisment and it was from ground level in front of the car, making it impossible to determine that the car had window tinting.  The CCC representative became defensive and indignant claiming that if I was so concerned about an item that impacted the valuation by only $70 that they would revise the report.  Having learned all that I needed to know about CCC Valuescope, that their process for determining market value was sloppy, shoddy, and cursory, I told the Insurance representative to remove the CCC person from the call.

I tried making a point to the Insurance rep about how poor the quality of the market value report was, but incredibly they still stuck by CCC. (This is one reason you should not believe your Insurance carrier, they’re in bed with CCC and will say nothing bad about them even in the face of evidence.)  I was getting nowhere with the Insurance rep so I told them I would submit another letter with my most recent concerns.

Next: Documenting Incompetence