To all who were so responsive to our terrible accident on October 3rd in Kansas, here is an update and report on the involved insurance companies: (Edit: Here's that story on
RVnet.)
Our insurance company, Progressive, has been very good to us. We had an agreed value on our coach of $55K, and they paid us promptly for that, less the $2500 deductible. Surprisingly, and likely due to state insurance regulations, they added several thousand for fees and taxes we'll pay for our replacement coach. We also had $750 emergency expenses coverage with our policy, and they paid that as well.
The other party's insurance company, Allied or Nationwide (they seem to use both names) has been fair and responsive as well. I had to send them our claim and supporting documents twice as they didn't get the first mailing, so that was a couple of weeks delay.
We listed everything we could think of on our claim that required our labor, time, money, etc. I claimed $15 per hour for all the labor involved in unloading our "stuff" from the coach, driving it home, and unloading it there. I claimed every dollar we spent for the U-Haul rental, boxes, truck door lock, gas, food, and motels. We claimed mileage for our kids who drove 800 miles round trip to help us and for their motel, their labor unloading the coach with us, etc. I claimed the $2500 deductible. I even claimed the unused portion of the chassis and transmission service I'd just paid for. We claimed possible back injury for my wife. Allied (or Nationwide) has agreed to pay for everything except my maintenance costs which they said was included in the value of the coach. But it turned out my wife's back seems Ok, and they offered $2500 to clear that claim. We accepted. That more than covered the maintenance claim they denied. We are pleased with both insurance companies and consider ourselves fairly treated. It has been a wonderful relief that we were treated well as we'd never dealt with such a large claim before.
And...!! We have a new coach which is another story but I'll include it here. Our search for a 32' Journey, the coach we lost, was very frustrating. I had alerts listed on three major RV sales sites for what we basically wanted: a diesel pusher up to 34' long and in similar condition to ours. Only one Journey 32T of our vintage and equipment was found, and the seller wanted almost $80K for it, an outrageous price. (It's still for sale, of course.)
We finally found a very low priced Bounder 34 in Ohio. We bought it sight unseen, but well investigated, and paid the seller in advance! (We vetted him very well and he is a pillar of his community.) We paid for a couple of his friends (former cops) to drive it to our home, about 2500 miles. All went well, and the coach arrived two days ago.
Our new-to-us Bounder Diesel has a Cat C7 engine instead of the Cummins our lost coach had, but I reckon I'll be happy with it. The Bounder is actually in better condition than ours was, and we are very pleased. I'll include a photo below.
I found similar Bounders online for up to $70K which seems outrageous; we bought this one for $45K plus $2500 for the delivery. My last gas coach which I sold when I bought the diesel we lost in the accident was blue and we called her Big Blue. So... here's Big Blue II: