What happens after you get in a bad wreck?
First you arrange to get the car towed to get it off the
street, perhaps to the tow company’s storage lot. Your insurance company can
help you arrange that if you are in a strange place or have no access to a “yellow”
pages. Best is to get it towed directly to the place you want to have it worked
on but sometimes that isn’t possible due to time (they are closed and locked
up) or distance. Try to be there when they tow it (I hope you aren't injured) and get them to use the tow hook that is in the tool kit in the front trunk that screws into the front bumper to winch your car onto a flatbed. Much better than being towed at the end of a hook.
You remove all personal items from the car. And all things you think might disappear (manuals, toolkits, etc).
Then you report the accident to your insurance company. You have the option of working through your insurance company (even if it isn’t your fault) or the other guy’s insurance company. The insurance company may send an adjuster to look at the car or may look at the car at the repair shop.
The insurance company may suggest a repair place and may
even guarantee the work if done at their choice but they can’t make you get it
fixed there. If it is the other guy's fault, don't assume you have to work through his insurance company and don't let them tell you how it will be fixed. Don't let them give you a line about "not paying for rental car during any delay" either. Remind them their client is in the wrong (sure hope he is) and you expect the car to be done right and if you have to, you will go after the guy that hit you and sue him. If necessary, contact him and let him know that you aren't satisfied with the way the insurance company is handling things and you wish to remind him he is ultimately responsible and urge him to have his insurance company do things right.. It is amazing how insurance company attitudes change when they get pressure from their insured, who, after all, doesn't want to get sued.
The car gets towed to the body shop. The body shop schedules it for a preliminary estimate. Depending on the body shop, this can take days or weeks. This is to make sure the car is even worth the trouble of doing a more thorough estimation. In my case, what I thought was $5,000-6,000 at this point turned into $16,000.
The car then gets OK'ed to undergo a more complete estimate (which I believe the insurance company pays for). Again this can be a matter of days or weeks, depending on the body shop’s schedule. The cost will probably go up as more damage is discovered, frame measurements are taken and more serious damage is discovered. In my case the next estimate was $26,500 and that was with the risk of still more cost once they got the whole car apart.
The insurance company generally has a rule like “at 75% of value of the car, we total the car, not fix it.” They will then provide you a figure that may include things you hadn’t thought of like taxes and registration pro-rated over the expected life of the car. In my case, they provided me a quote that was more than I paid the prior owner for the car 5 months earlier (even though they knew exactly what I paid for the car)! Insurance companies often don’t do the “totaling” job themselves but turn it over to a company that specializes in recycling totaled cars.
You decide you want the car fixed, they will write you a check and any expense in addition to their check (including hidden damage) is your responsibility.
You decide to accept their offer, you fill out some paperwork and return the paperwork and the title signed off to the totaling company. In a few days, you get your check. They pick up the car from the body shop and dispose of it probably at auction. It ends up at one of the recyclers listed in List of Dismantlers. Or it gets sent to some low labor cost area where it can be repaired and the title "washed" so that the title no longer says salvage and then resold.
In my case from accident to check in hand took 5 weeks and I had USAA which is the best insurance company in handling claims. 4 of those weeks was waiting on the body shop (a good one but then you don’t want just anyone working on your Porsche).
But before you tell them you'll accept their totaling the car, a tip. Sneak back to the body shop and remove from the car any upgrades you have made that you can replace with the OEM parts you removed and saved. For example, you replaced the yellow side lights with white ones. It is fair to return the yellow light to the car and retrieve your white ones and sell them on the parts market (ebay, PPBB, etc). The insurance company will total the car as a stock car, and take little or no account of any hacks you made. Return to the car the manuals and tool kit you took out so they didn’t get stolen and any keys.
Now go shopping for your next P-car. And drive it in good health.
If you are lucky and the car can be repaired, look at the value of the "as-repaired" car versus the car"pre-accident". The difference is called diminished value. Look on the web to see if you are in a state that allows diminished value claims. And discuss it with the insurance company. If what they offer in diminished value doesn't seem reasonable, consider hiring a diminished value estimator to help you with your claim. They usually change far less than they will save you.