Is There Anything You Can Do if Your Auto Insurance Payout Is Too Low?

Once your insurer finishes processing your claim, you’ll receive an initial settlement offer. The word initial is key here — this is the first offer the insurance company is making based on its best judgment and the information it has, but you are not obligated to accept it. Think of it like any other negotiation. Once the first offer is on the table, if you feel it’s too low, you can go back to them with additional information or arguments to ask for more.

To determine whether it’s too low and what a reasonable offer would be, make sure you have a clear idea of what costs you need to cover — whether you were in an accident and need to pay for car repairs, or your car was stolen and you need a replacement, or whatever your situation may be.

Depending on your injuries and property damage, you may need to, for example, get estimates from several auto shops for the repair work you need done, gather all your medical bills, or compile compelling evidence that your car’s ACV is more than the insurer is estimating.

If you receive what you perceive to be a lowball offer from your insurance company, here’s what you can do about it.

Negotiate With Your Insurer

The first course of action is to try to negotiate directly with your insurer. Send a written response asking for more details about how they arrived at their settlement amount so that you can assess if certain costs were underestimated or details were missed.

Once you have this information, you can put together a counteroffer that includes any additional documentation you may have to support a higher payout, such as documents related to your car’s value, additional photos of the damage, estimates from repair shops, medical records, and police reports.

Your insurer may accept your counteroffer, or it may provide one of its own. This may take a few rounds of back and forth, but if you cannot come to an agreement, there are other steps you can take.

Financially speaking, it’s in the insurance company’s best interest to pay the lowest amount you’ll accept, as this saves them money. There’s a balance to be struck, since their goal is also to retain customers, but many companies may lowball their first offer and hope that you won’t push back.

It’s also possible that the insurance company is missing important information regarding your injuries or property damage, or is underestimating the cost of repairs.

Payouts involving collision and comprehensive coverage, which cover damages to your own vehicle, work a bit differently than liability coverage in that the coverage limits are not a set dollar amount. Instead, they are based on the actual cash value (ACV) of your vehicle, which can leave some room for interpretation and negotiation if your car is totaled.

Ideally, insurance payouts would always be sufficient, and there would never be a need to dispute them. In reality, knowing about your options when you receive a settlement offer can help you obtain the amount you’re owed.

Every year, J.D. Power ranks auto insurance providers on customer satisfaction with the claims process. Survey results are based on responses from nearly 10,000 customers who recently filed a claim. It measures the following aspects of claims satisfaction, in order of importance: trust, fairness of settlement, time to settle claim, people, communication, ease of resolving claim, ease of starting claim, and digital channels.

The average score in the study is 697 out of 1,000 points. The following companies scored above-average, meaning they generally pay out claims in a fair, timely, and communicative manner¹.

*USAA technically does not qualify to rank because it does not meet study award criteria — this is likely because USAA is only available to military members, veterans, and their families.

Our Winners: Among these providers, State Farm, USAA, Erie, and Amica are some of our auto insurance top picks for customer satisfaction. If you’re shopping for auto insurance after a recent claim, it’s worth comparing quotes from multiple companies to see who will offer you the best deal.

You count on your insurance company to help you ease the financial burden of medical expenses and car repairs, but you may not always get the payout you’re hoping for. If you feel that your insurer is lowballing the settlement offer, you can make a counteroffer and start the negotiation process. In more extreme cases, you may want to hire a lawyer or an independent appraiser. Remember that ultimately, though it can be tempting to push for more, your goal should be a fair payout that covers the costs associated with your car accident or other covered incident.