What Should I Do if the Insurance Company Refuses to Pay for Pre-Loss Repair?

The insurance company is responsible for returning your vehicle to its “pre-loss condition”.  Let’s just say that you have rear bumper damage in this current loss but have damage on the front bumper from a previous loss.  The insurance company from the current loss is not responsible for repairing your front bumper.  By doing so, that would be improving your vehicles condition from its state immediately prior to the current loss.  The repair facility can give you an estimate on the cost to repair any unrelated damage.

Now, let’s just say that the previous damage was on the same panel.  For example, you had previous minor damage on the left side of the bumper, but this current loss caused significant damage on the right side which requires replacement of the bumper.  In this situation, the insurance company would take what is called a “betterment” on the bumper.  This means that they will replace the bumper but they are going to pass some of the cost of it on to you since the bumper wasn’t perfect prior to the current loss.