Marketplace

Crash and Burned (38x7)

Air date: Feb 18, 2011

Co-host Tom Harrington investigates what some call the best kept secret in the car insurance industry: why insurance companies prevent people from claiming diminished value insurance on vehicles that have been in a significant collision. Harrington's own car was in a collision and he takes it to a dealership for an appraisal and discovers how much value it has lost -- even though the damage was repaired expertly to the manufacturer's standards. He talks to a B.C. man who is taking his insurance company to court, and travels to Georgia, where paying out diminished value insurance claims has been the law for almost a decade. Will the laws ever change here?