Need advice! Insurance Q's, Here's one I wish I didn't have to ask! Options

[East coaster]

My nephew was involved in an accident with his (my old) really nice pristine '71 914. This is a really clean original car. The only things non-stock on this car are the 914-6 front end/rear hubs and the fuchs. It was original paint and was in really sweet shape. Today, someone backed into it with a mini-van while he was waiting at a light. It looks like it needs at least a hood, bumper, bumper rubber, foglight grills and the obvious body work to the front end. The alignment still feels OK, but the lights have popped up indicating the unibody was bent. I can't open the hood to investigate further without removing the bumper and I didn't want to mess with anything until I figure out how to deal with this from an insurance perspective.

I'm looking for advice on how to proceed with the insurance company. The other driver readily admitted he was in the wrong and received a ticket. So how do we make sure that it gets repaired correctly?? I can just see some hacker shop throwing a resprayed non color matched hood and trying to straighten the bumper and saying it's OK. This car really deserves to fixed correctly and I need advice on how to get that accomplished. I'm also afraid that if the repair estimate is too high, they'll want to total it?? How do you walk that thin line??

If it comes down to needing a professional appraisal of this car to fight with the insurance company, is anyone here qualified to do this??

Help! Here's pics.......

[Howard]

Here you go. I'm an insurance broker in CA and while the policy forms and laws may be a touch different, same basic stuff applies.

First question. Do you carry collision coverage on the car? If so, it may be easier to collect from your own company since they're not an adversary. You pay the deductible, they pay the rest, then you give them the right to go after the other party (subrogate, in insurance BS). They collect all from the other company, including your deductible.

Even if you deal with the other company, the SOP is pretty much the same. They try to find the 'actual cash value' of the car. You can help in this regard by visiting collectorcar.com or similar and find out what the asking price on a car of like kind and quality. Figure you could probably get it for 15% by haggling, add tax, license and any other fees and you will be able to give them a number.

I don't advise fixing the car if the damage exceeds 70% of that number, since once they take it apart, you may find some previously unseen old car issues.

Love doing estimates from 3000 miles away, so take this FWIW. A nice 71 would have an ACV of about $5000. Your's looks better than that, but that's a good starting point. You have about $2200 damage at body shop rates, so car should not be anywhere close to a total.

Here's a $2500 job. Suzi lost the battle to a Ford Pickup. New hood, bumper, and valence. Pull unit pody straight, one new headlight assy, marker lites, front grills, etc. Since the paint was over 10 years old, I sprung another $900 to paint the rest of the car.

I can't legally represent you in this, but email if you want more help. I can certainly talk to the adjustor and provide values.