"Am I an idiot" question....regarding auto accident and insurance

[Ms. Toad]

8. I keep the pain and suffering in my back pocket, in case I need it as leverage.

When my daughter was little and we were just scraping by (both cash flow and time), a very young driver turned left in front of me and I couldn't stop in time. No one was injured (aside from the freaked out teenager), but because my car was older the repair costs were within $100 of the value of the car.

At the time I had no extra money to replace the car, and no time to go searching for one, so I wanted to keep my car. The insurance company just wanted to total it and be done with it. I told them all I wanted was for my ER visit bills to be paid (just to be checked out, since it was a pretty hard hit), and my car repaired. They insisted it had to be totaled. I threatened to get an attorney involved - and warned then that doing so would cost them more money because I would also make a claim for pain and suffering (the only way to get the attorney's costs covered - and it did re-activate a long-standing back injury). They apparently thought I was bluffing.

$8000 in my pocket, plus a few thousand more for the attorney, and my car repaired - I wonder if they ever regretted their decision not to find $100 to justify not totaling the car (newer tires, upgraded radio, recent major repair, etc.)