I need anyone that can help me!!!

[TFGWelding]

Hello all:

I am new to this forum stuff and an reaching out to all my fellow welders that can appreciate good craftsmanship. My Dad built a prototype welding rig that he spent 4 months of his time to conceptualize, design, and Build. I was in an accident and now we are having problems with the insurance company establishing a value. We have it insured for $15000 because that is what we figured it would cost in material to build a new one. The Insurance company is saying they will only pay out about $2600 because that is what they think it is worth. I am looking for anyone to say what they would be WILLING to pay for a trailer like ours. I look forward to hearing some honest opinions. Thank you in advance for any posts!!!

It was hard to show all the points of the trailer in only 5 pics (I did the best that I could). I showed 2 when it was first built 1 of the rebuild and 2 of the new. If anyone would like to see more before they make a post let me know and I will get them to you. tfgwelding@gmail.com

Features:

-Welder Platform that will fit any welder
-Space for 3 O2 bottles and 1 acetylene bottle (all sizes can fit)
-Front storage for rod boxes (Water tight)
-Middle storage for tool box/hand tools
-Belly storage
-Rear storage for welding leads, electrical line (4outlets), and torch lead (all on spools...all welding leads, electrical cords and torch hose is ran thru the trailer to keep out of sight and protected)
-Jib crane (can be set in any corner and can lift an older SA-200...never lifted anything heavier than that with it)
-Rack system to haul 24' length material. (have had 6800lbs on the rack at one time with no problems)
-2 7k axles
-Custom goose neck to allow a 6' 2'' person with welding hood on to walk under it without hitting their head
-Spare tire rack build into goose neck
-Work bench with a vise/pipe holder
-Area in the work bench that has opening for cutting with a torch
-One bad *** looking trailer!

[jontheturboguy]

Lawyer up

[TFGWelding]

If you know any, that would be helpful too!

[Gmmandan]

It is a very nice trailer I can def see the I think $5000 to $6k would be the most I could see paying unless it was decked out with equipment . No offense to you but you said you wanted honest opinions. I can buy a brand new kaufman trailer 14 k goose for around $4000.00 new and put $1000 to $1500 in accessories on it and not be ready to go. I have never been one to have a real flashy trailer and equipment though . The more people who notice wha you have means the more equipment gets stolen, more tickets from state police and or the D.O.T checks all of you specs and looks over the thing behind the scales.

[DSW]

About the only way you might get true value out of the insurance company is to draw it all up the way you built it, and put it out for bid. At least with a set of drawings, you can pull a list of materials and get a steel quote. The insurance company will probably want something solid on paper to work with.

My guess is as mentioned earlier, you probably will need to get a lawyer to fight for you on this. The insurance company isn't interested in giving you "fair value" for anything. They want to pay as little as possible unless forced to do otherwise. Sadly the time to document "value" on something like this is before there is an issue, not afterwards. I made damn sure that my insurance company knew and agreed to the exact value of my custom utility body when I 1st got the truck so if there was an accident, they already had a documented value of the body. I didn't want them to just toss out a number for a cheap stock body and think that was "good". They wanted detailed drawings, photos and documentation from the builder as to exactly how it was built and what it cost. All that hassle paid off big time when some kid smashed into the back of the body less than 6 months later. Insurance company didn't bat an eye when I took it back to the body company and they "totaled" the body and had a 2nd $35K custom body built to replace the damaged one vs trying to patch and repair the original.


Custom units like this are almost always more "valuable" to the people who build or use them than they are to others. I tried to explain a similar thing last year with my buddies wife after he passed away. She thought his custom flat bed work truck was worth a lot more than it was in reality, because of all the money it cost to build it just the way he wanted it for his business. To anyone else, it was just an old truck with a flat bed, 2 toolboxes and a rack... All the custom stuff was "minor". Most people can't grasp why my custom body is $35K vs $8-12K for a some what similar stock body. I know I'll never see anything close to the real value if I ever wanted to sell it.