[1965gp]

I thought a few of you may benefit from hearing this story as it may apply to some of your cars.

Our Hellcat Daytona was stolen from our house on 12/8, this car like most others we have was/is insured by USAA.

We were told we had to wait 19 days for it to be deemed a total loss. On 12/27 they sent over their valuation report.they were about 10k lower than expected- but honestly I knew that was going to happen.

So that car was a 50th Anniversary edition Daytona Hellcat widebody (quite the name…..). It was blue with every option including a sunroof. They made 501 of these as an anniversary to the 69/70 wing cars. 160 of those were Blue, the rest were white, black or silver. The blue car is what was used for marketing. I sent documentation, comparables and all the articles on the car providing details and the extra cost options. As well as sales of that exact car in 2023 (most were 90-110k and I am not asking for anywhere near that).

They come back with the same price. They expand the search and come back with the same price again. I tell them they are not using the correct comparables after looking up the vin #’s and sales of the cars they chose. They are comparing my car to a basic white hellcat with no options but again, that’s kind of expected. Some of the ones they are comparing to had been wrapped or modified.

I send in comparable cars- they tell me they cant use them because they are wide body cars. I then tell them my car IS a wide body car. Another week goes by. They offer an extra 2900 because of the Daytona package. I’m willing to come down a little and we are about 5k away.

They don’t want to discuss it-we are now into our 4th week of negotiations, almost 7 weeks after the car was stolen with no sign of a compromise. They are going to force me to take the offer or enlist a third party and drag this out.

I would expect this from a 2nd tier insurance company, but I have been with USAA for 32 years! They have had all of my banking and insurance business my entire life- and this is how I am valued as a customer. They will make much more than 5k on the loan I take out to replace this car!

USAA has insured most all of my vehicles and not once did they raise a concern of the value. They were happy to take payments every month on anything I bought.

My point is- if you have a collector vehicle or rare modern muscle car, sports car, etc you really need to look into how the cars are valued. I’m not even getting private party value on a car that continues to rise in value.

My dad’s collection is insured by USAA because it is easy and convenient. If his barn caught fire I feel certain he would get 3k per car.

If you have regular insurance on you collector cars I urge you to re-evaluate before something happens.