[Superman]

I am not a big supporter of the insurance industry. I'm not going to go into those details here, but you can all assume that I have roughly the same amount of compassion for the insurance companies that they have for me. 'Nuff said.

But it's not true that I don't "support" that industry in the sense of supporting it financially. I am approaching the mid-century mark in terms of my age, and it looks like the ratio of dollars I pay in premiums compared to dollars paid out in claims against my policies, is somewhere around 100:1. So, if I ever need to make a claim, I am not going to be amused at the first sight of game-playing. In fact, at the first sight of that, I'm likely to hire an attorney to deal with the insurance company or companies.

In this case, there is little chance that the insurance company can restore this car to its pre-accident condition. If they just repair and spray a few spots, the paint will not match and the insurance company will owe the owner for the ongoing visible damage/repair that would not be there had the accident not happened. I know we're not talking about a '58 300 SL wiht original paint, but if we were, the damage would be hard to calculate since a full professional restoration/respray would devalue the car. And the insurance company here is not going to spring for a full respray which, in this case, would probably increase the car's value if done properly. So, this motorist is between a rock and a hard place, which is where the insurance company likes you to be. Any and all settlement dollars he can get is fair, IMO. And unfortunately, the insurance companies will make him struggle mightily in order to reach a fair settlement.

I'd say insurance companies and their behavior and agenda is a caricature of what's wrong in this country. But then, I promised not go go into that here.