Victim of car theft has message for car owners

A Burlington couple who had their pickup stolen say they felt victimized twice by the criminals but also by their insurance agent.

On December 20, at 3 a.m. Ed Russell was awoken by a call from the police. They had just called off a high-speed chase against Ed’s Ford F-350. Someone had stolen his car from right under his nose.

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The pickup was recovered but what was left behind horrified Ed and his wife Patsy, “it was severely damaged. It was obvious drug use. There were crack pipes. There were burns in the seats. Someone had defecated on the passenger seat,” Ed said.

The couple reached out to their insurance company which they say was everything but helpful. Ed says, “the insurance company applied consistent pressure to us, basically telling us we had no choice in the matter, that if they chose to repair the vehicle, we were going to take it back.” Ed says it took two months of stressful negotiating with their insurer before the truck was written off.

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The Insurance Bureau of Canada says insurers will never payout more to fix the vehicle than its current value, “if the truck is worth $10,000 and it’s going to cost the insurance company $12,000 to clean it out and repair it, fix any damage, then the insurance company, the majority of the time will write it off because by repairing it, they’re giving the consumer, the policyholder, back more money than the vehicle is actually worth.”

Ed suggests doing as little as possible negotiating over the phone and try corresponding by email so you have a paper trail to reference.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says if you just bought a new vehicle, you may want to obtain what’s called a waiver of depreciation endorsement. If you obtain the waiver and your vehicle is stolen or damaged, the insurance company returns the value stated in the document and not the value at the time of the incident.