I heart Allstate

Last week I took my car to the Allstate drive-up adjuster (who knew there was such an entity?) and crossed my fingers. I glammed up the ol' gal to make her look like she's worth a million bucks--or at least more than the repairs would cost. I was outside in the biting wind scrubbing old bird doo off the hood, which I should have done weeks ago, but it's hard to be motivated about keeping your car clean when it's not garaged and every morning ends up with a fresh coat of dew.

[Heh heh...I used "doo" and "dew" in the same sentence! Betchya never thought you'd see that! For some reason that makes me think about how back in school, the teacher made you use the week's vocabulary words in a sentence. I used to try and cram as many words as I could into one sentence. Kind of lazy, but kind of not, since it's harder to make up a sentence that uses them all and still makes sense. Anyway, end of side note.]

Not to mention the fact that our county is under mandatory water restrictions due to drought, so I'm not sure washing your car at home is even legal. So, yeah, I let her go because I was conserving water. That's it.

But now it was important for her to make a good impression. So I cleaned out the car, made her look all spiffy inside, no junk in the trunk so to speak. Not that having stuff in the car makes it less valuable, but having a neat car would give the impression that it's been well-cared-for. Hey, give me a break, I was desperate! Then I even took her to the car wash despite the looming rainclouds. It was one of those no-touch deals, which are fun to sit in, but I doubt their efficiency. Afterwards when I hopped out to dry her off, my yellow towel promptly became black with the dirt that the "power wash" did not manage to power away. But she did look better and I figured the $7 was worth it if it made the slightest bit of positive difference in the adjuster's opinion.

Well, it turns out that all that effort was basically for naught. The adjuster was very friendly. I arrived at about quarter of three for my 3:00 appointment. But apparently he had me down for 4:00. He took me anyway, which was cordial. And all he did was stand outside the car with his laptop and enter in all the parts that would need to be replaced. He did not appear to even consider the possibility of totaling the car. His estimate was about $400 less than the auto body shop's had been. And with my deductible, the insurance company was looking at an outlay of less than $1000, so totaling the car would not be logical.

I called Cary Collision, which is about a mile from my house, and Cecil told me to bring by this new estimate. He seemed doubtful that he could procure the necessary parts at the cost Allstate assumed, but when he called me back a few hours later, he said he could do it. So I'll be taking my car in a week from today to get her all fixed. Yay! Thankfully my insurance includes rental car coverage, so while mine is in the shop, I can still be mobile.

Now, I've only used my insurance one other time, and based on that time alone, I vowed eternal loyalty to Allstate because they had my back, as the kids say. Once again I am delighted with Allstate's service. I would never consider a cheapo off brand company just to save a few bucks on the premium.