Its happened to most of us at one time or another, or at least to a friend, that dreaded event we call an auto accident. Hopefully your accident was like mine - the only thing bruised was my car and my feelings. After the inevitable arrival of the police officer, the exchange of information, the tow truck taking away my vehicle, and my wife picking me up at the scene, I had to make that all important call to the "insurance company". A few million questions and several hours later I finally got my claim started. Now don't get me wrong, I personally don't have any problems with insurance companies, they are like every other business in the world. Their top priority and main goal is to make money. To Make Money. They will pat you on the back and tell you how sorry they are that you have been in an accident, but they are most interested in protecting their bottom line and they will be glad to do this at your expense.

 Insurance companies do make great TV commercials. They want you to feel like your protected and taken care of, they are watching out for your best interests, and that they will go out of their way to make sure they are saving you money. They use cool slogans, catchy phrases and even animals and cave men to make sure you remember who they are and what they can do for you. Like I said before, they are in business to make money and they do a good job at it.

 Okay, i got a little carried away, sorry. A few days after my accident, an insurance appraiser came out to the body shop where I had my car towed and made an estimate of damages to my vehicle. He called me and discussed what he had discovered and amount of repair time. Everything sounded good, but since I have some familiarity with this subject, I asked him what kind of parts would be put on my Chevrolet. Would they be Chevrolet parts, made by GM, and what my vehicle came with originally?

 Of course the answer to this question was no and is the point of this rambling rhetoric. You see most insurance companies will not put your car back to pre-loss condition by using genuine manufacturers parts. Why? They consider those parts to expensive and would prefer to put on aftermarket parts made in China or South America. It reduces the cost of your claim and thus saves them money. Consider a $50 to $100 dollar savings per claim, multiplied by the thousands of claims per year and you can start to understand why they do this. Is it fair to you? No...you pay insurance every month or six to protect your vehicle from damage and then when that damage occurs you don't get what you paid for. Do you pay to have inferior parts put back on your vehicle that reduce its resale value because of fit,finish,etc? I think not. If the insurance company wanted to put those kind of parts on our vehicles, then maybe they should sell us a policy specifying their use so that we know whats going on. You should get what you pay for in my opinion. Of course, until I asked, this parts subject wasn't broached by the insurance appraiser. When I requested that GM parts be used to fix my Chevrolet, I was told that the insurance company would only pay for the aftermarket parts and that I would have to pay the difference out of my pocket. Needless to say, I thought thats why I had insurance to begin with.

 So remember, if you ever get into an accident and have to have a vehicle repaired, make sure you find out what kind of parts are going back onto your vehicle because it may not come home like it was before the accident.