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Received: ID <C300EG60@CMU-CS-A>; 2 Mar 84 17:42:54 EST
Date:  2 Mar 84 1733 EST (Friday)
From: Ed.Gehringer@CMU-CS-A (C300EG60)
To: Harry.Bovik@CMU-CS-A
Subject: Auto appraisal
CC: Michael.Mauldin <mlm@CMU-CS-CAD>, Stephen.Hancock@CMU-CS-A,
    Elwood.Greene@CMU-CS-A, Rex.Dwyer@CMU-CS-A
Message-Id: <02Mar84.173347.EG60@CMU-CS-A>

(Thanks for your help, guys!)  Here's a summary of what I finally found out:

The problem:  My car, a 1973 Dart Swinger, is 11 years old, runs fine,
	and costs $70/yr. for collison insurance with the Erie Insurance
	Exchange.  I estimated that its book value to be between $400 and
	$600, so not much would be left over after a $250 deductible.
	Under those circumstances, collision insurance just didn't make sense.
	But to replace the car with one of equal reliability would probably
	cost at least $2500.

The approach:  Erie offers to insure a car for a "stated value" rather than
	book value if the owner has it appraised.  (I believe that Erie is
	one of the few insurance companies to offer this type of coverage.)

Second problem:  My agent couldn't recommend anyone to do the appraisal.
	He said Erie used to retain an appraiser, but dropped him (/her?)
	because the volume of appraisals was too low.  I'm a AAA member;
	they furnished the name of Whitehall Insurance Adjusters, 884-6600,
	who wanted $50 to do the appraisal, again a prohibitive cost.
	It was clear from our conversation that Whitehall was in the business
	of appraising wrecked cars for insurance companies and didn't quite
	know how to deal with a running car for an individual.

Back to square 1:  When I contacted my agent again, he referred me to the Erie
	branch office; they directed me to auto dealerships, but said that I
	would have to get two appraisals.  That sounded pretty costly, too.

The solution:  I had the folks at the branch office look up the book value
	of the car, so that I could estimate how much extra coverage an
	appraisal might bring.  They looked in two books, the Blue Book and
	(I vaguely recall) the "Gold Book" (maybe Red--I don't have a color
	telephone).  For a Dart of that age, the "high" value was $1400 or
	so in one book and $18xx in the other, for an average of $1600, which
	is the price they would pay in case of an accident, after having
	the car looked at to see that it had in fact been in good condition.

	Since $1600 is pretty close to what I think the car is worth,
	I decided to drop the matter.

A final word of advice:  From my investigation, it seems to me that there
	are only two situations where it is worth having a car appraised--

		- if the car is worth over $5000 and has a lot of add-on
		  equipment, or

		- if the car is a "classic"--more than 10 years old with
		  no more than about 15000 miles on it.