You are right.
In my case, the insurance company paid about $3000 thousand dollars for the repair.
I went to a apparently good body shop, they quoted lots of hours of work and $3 K as estimate. A little over 3K. It seemed outlandish to me, but in the eyes of the mafia, it is the way to go.
The insurance company paid, but under pressure from the Insurance Commision and my complaint. I was not going to accept my car tittle to be branded "salvage". That would identify my car as a damaged beyond repair vehicle, useless, and its value would be close to nothing. A dented door is no reason to brand a vehicle a "salvage" vehicle. That is used for vehicles that go through flood damage, submerged in water, through heavy accidents with bent frames, fire damage, etc, not dented doors !
But like you said, rather than fighting for good work and reasonable repair prices, the insurance company caves and kowtows to uncalled for estimates, and since insurance companies and body shops ( together with chiropractors and physical therapy centers that milk the system) ...are partners in crime, they would rather give me 1K and call my tittle a salvage, rather than going after their partners in crime, with whom they make billions of dollars in all kinds of inflated cases.
By making my tittle a salvage tittle, the insurance company spends less money fixing my car, and justify the low payment because it is a salvage vehicle, beyond repair.
Also the state motivates insurers into getting older vehicles off the streets, vehicles which are ussualy exempted from smog -pollution fees and pay low registration fees annualy as well for years to come !
These cars and bikes are non desireable vehicles and the state wants that vehicle destroyed, so the owner then can purchase a new or newer one that would pay full fees and benefit from no exemptions.
That is why this country is all messed up , insurance companies, health care, everything is ran like a business, but from the standpoint of a monopoly, mafia style, and the government participates from the revenues, that is why out government supports this system.
750DOHC