Another seat written off.. questions

My DH was in a fender bender a few weeks ago (gosh we have had horrible driving luck this year!!!) and there was body damage to the car so I assume that the seat is no good anymore. He still has to talk to his adjuster, but I am guessing since the damage is almost equal to the amount I had on my car that the seat will be written off... plus I just wouldn't want to use it anymore since its been in an accident (no child in the seat at the time).

UNFORTUNATELY the seat is our old AOE... which when I bought it over 2 1/6 years ago I thought would be great. He's already almost outgrown it, and I really just do not like much about it.

Normally with claims they want you to get a similar or same seat right? So do you think I would really have to get another one? Might I chance buying one at TRU and then be reimbursed... and then exchange it for a Nautilus?

Or is that really dishonest? I guess I could just get a new one, and sell it new in the box and then use that $ to get a Nautilus...

I really just don't want another AOE for obvious reasons. Or are the new AOE any better than the old ones? (I'm in Canada if that makes a difference)

What I do, around here is make a receipt up for the parents as to how much their car seat cost. So, their car seat cost $180, they want a $240 seat, they just pay the difference.

The usual rule in terms of insurance replacement is like kind and quality. In other words, if you had a Scenera, you can't go out and replace it with a Marathon or Frontier.

I know here that they wouldn't make you buy an identical seat, and I wouldn't expect your province to require it either..

That being said, the new 3in1 that has the 35lb rf'ing limit and 50lb ff'ing limit is significantly improved in terms of top harness height. The top harness height on it is now close to what the Radian's is. Physically it measures more, but I'd guess the length of fit is pretty similar. With a higher weight limit most kids will probably make it to 50lbs in the harness with the exception of thin and tall kids.

The cost of a new 3in1 is $210 if you get the AOE version (vs. the EB version which is $30 more,) while the Nautilus is going to cost $215 if you can find one at your Wal-Mart. With the replacement cost being close to equal on the 2 seats, your insurer *should* cover that if that's what you'd rather do. It's really up to you.

And yes, you're right that the seat should be replaced even with it being unoccupied.

I hope your dh is all right and that this is the last of the run of crashes for a long time.

Well see the difference here is that when my Radian was written off, I was told to go buy a new one (Same-ish) and they would cover it. So I bought a NEW one, the new model- more expensive than the one written off. And it was covered 95% (10% taken off for depreciation, and 5% added on for tax reimbursement).

All I had to do was hand in the receipt for the seat and they sent me a cheque to reimburse me. So its not that they took the value of the seat I already owned and gave me a cheque for that. I just handed in my old seat at the time of giving them my receipt to copy.

So its more like I'll buy a seat and they will reimburse me. But I have to hand over my old seat (fine with me) and buy another that is similar to be reimbursed.

If that's the way they want to do it there, then I'd go get one of the new 3in1's. From a technical standpoint, submitting the receipt and getting reimbursed, then returning the seat to exchange for the Nautilus could technically be considered insurance fraud. I know that SK insurance is different from AB in some ways, but not keeping what you're reimbursed for isn't looked well on even when you replace it with the same type of thing.

So I'd probably go the route of getting one of the updated 3in1's. But you can always call and talk to them - explain that the price is the same and see what they say. From what I've heard it can be difficult to deal with SGI though, so I'm not sure how lenient they'll be if that's their policy...

The good news is that you can expect to get a lot more use out of the updated 3in1 seats. They still don't make good boosters, but they're a decent harnessed seat. :thumbsup:

Well thats good to hear that the new AOE are better than the old ones. Boy what I wish I had known back in the day.

I really don't feel good about returning one for another either. It doesn't seem right.

I think I will get my DH (who is fine by the way, he just bumped into a lamp post on the city streets and broke in the front bumper) to ask whether or not we can get one seat over another. Last time I checked TRU they didn't have the AOE on display but I wasn't looking exceedingly hard. I only saw the Safety First version, and I believe they were still only 5pt to 40lbs.

At least if we do end up with the newer version I am glad to hear that it is a better one. It could be our extra seat for the grandparents if needed.

Thanks so much for the advice.

I'm in BC and we recently had a little accident (fortunately no kids in the car) and replaced our 2 Graco seats that were 2 and 3 years away from expiry. I was planning on replacing the seats anyway because there are so many better seats around now and ds was minutes away from outgrowing the ComfortSport.

We replaced them with 2 Britax Frontiers. We handed in our "dead" carseats, plus the receipt for the 2 new Britaxs, plus a printout from Sears that showed the current prices to replace a ComfortSport and a Graco Platinum Cargo. ICBC refunded us for the full replacement value of the 2 Graco seats - about $325 with taxes, which paid for one of the Britaxs. I was thrilled about that - I expected much less with depreciation and all that. But at the same time, that makes sense - getting in an accident is unexpectedly expensive (especially right after Christmas!), replacing carseats is another expense and perhaps less safety concerned parents would just keep the damaged carseats to avoid the cost of replacing them if ICBC didn't do that.