oh, no, meara! But I'm glad nobody was hurt.

Kitten!

I wish I wasn't allergic so to cats, because I do love playing with kittens. Mallory Ortberg had a fabulous ongoing story this week about catching a feral kitten in her yard, and it was SO WEE.

sarameg is right, this is bread and butter to insurance companies and the body shops that work for them. They'll tell you what to do.

Well, but what happens? I mean, do they tell me "take it to X place, and once they've looked at it we'll either fix it at Y place or give you $Z"? Or do they say "take it a place you go and tell us how much it will be"? Or?? Do I get a rental car while it's getting fixed? Can I take a rental car to Canada, because I'm supposed to be going there in two weeks? Ugh.

Meara

When a delivery truck backed into the side of my parked car last year (2012 Subaru Forester), the bill to replace the door, back panel and tire was about $5500 all of which, fortunately, was covered by the delivery company's insurance. You will first need to decide whether you want to process the claim under your insurance (in which case you will have to meet the deductible but the insurance company will handle all of the negotiations with the repair place and the other driver's insurance company) or under the other driver's insurance company (which avoids the deductible and the hit on your insurance but means you have to make all of the phone calls -the insurance company, the rental car company, the body shop, the tire shop -yourself over the next few weeks) and, unfortunately, sometimes the body shop won't give you an estimate until they know which insurance company will be paying the bill.

In either event, notify your insurance company tonight and get a claim number; you can tell them to cancel it later if you decide to work with the other driver's insurance.

In my case the other company paid for it all, and they sent someone to take pictures and send in an estimate and then I called a body shop my mechanic recommended. They took care of all the insurance stuff after that. I called a rental place too, and they contacted the insurance company to arrange for them to pay the bill. Was pretty low stress, considering.

Yeah, luckily I'm home all next week, but still don't want to waste lots of time having to deal with this! And I don't know a body shop (or have a mechanic, really). And I've been thinking about a new car, but really don't need one now and don't really want to spend the money, but...getting this one fixed seems like it might be silly...

Burrell's experience is mine.

My concern given the age of the car would be that if the repair is more than the value they may declare it totalled. Which would take the choice out of your hands. (When that happened to me I knew there was no way I could get a car as reliable for the amount the car was officially worth. To avoid having it classified as totaled I had to take a much lower settlement.)

Least delightful insomnia variant ever: dreamed it was 6:30 and the alarm had gone off, David had hit the snooze button, and I knew we only had a couple of minutes until it went off again for real so I had to drag myself up into consciousness to avoid the jolt of the alarm. So I did... and it was, in fact, 3:57 AM, and here I am. Oh, my brain, you evil genius, how I hate you.

Ugh, I hate that, JZ!

meara, someone I know just had her car totalled by the insurance company, but their first offer was half of what it was worth, so she went back with arguments and evidence, and they doubled the settlement. So definitely negotiate.

Oh, JZ I have so many times been visited by Evil Brain, Inc., Insomnia Subsidiary. I wish you a calm uncomplicated day. Or coffee. Whichever comes first.