Moving On

We woke up one morning, about three months ago, to discover our van missing. It was so surreal to see David and Micah standing where I had parked the van the previous evening. D called “Honey!” through the open living room window in a voice that told me something was up, but nothing too extreme. I thought maybe M fell and needed a kiss (this kid doesn’t do band aids…) on his boo-boo. Too bad it couldn’t have been that!

We called the police (D’s cell phone connected him to a call center like four towns over, so they had to transfer him to our city’s call center…) and the officer was there within ten minutes. He asked us some info so he could complete the Stolen Vehicle Report and he was gone in another ten minutes. Before we called the police, though, I called Mom just to see if there was some possibility that she or Dad had borrowed the van. Funny what your mind immediately jumps to – “stolen” wasn’t the first thing it processed. Poor Mom was thrown off by the question with a, “Um no, Jessa, we wouldn’t borrow your van without asking you first…” yeah, I kind of figured that, but it was worth a try. So began the dissemination of information. We called our insurance company, too, and the real fun began. Apparently we needed to initiate two claims: one for the van (auto) and one for the contents of the van (homeowner’s). The auto people sent out paperwork that needed to be filled out and returned and the homeowner people said to make a list of items in the vehicle, their replacement value, and how long we had had each. I got right on that.

Everything was moving along nicely with me thinking they’d never find the van and certainly not before our claim was settled. I didn’t care what had happened to it and while I certainly enjoyed everything about owning a van, I didn’t want that one back after it had been stolen. D took a different viewpoint in that he wanted to know what had happened to our new-to-us (for two months) van and hoped that it was still in good working order. Both of us got part of what we wanted: exactly ten days later, while we were enjoying a very yummy lunch at Red Robin (D was in the midst of working nights) I got a call from our local police department. I didn’t hear it and right before we left the restaurant, D checked my phone, saw a missed call with a message, and called my voicemail (No, he usually doesn’t check my cell phone or messages, but he had been bugging me the whole time the van was missing to keep my phone charged and on me at all times because they’d be calling my phone. So he’d check my phone as often as me when he was around!). Anyway, back to the police: they very quickly told us that they had gotten a call from a police station in Long Island, NY and spouted off some number for us to call. D called the number and it was the tow yard who said they couldn’t give us any info and spouted off another number that would get us to the police. The officer I talked to was helpful and totally had the New York accent down nicely, which was entertaining. Yes, they did have our van. Yes, it was operable. No, he couldn’t tell me much more than that. A person (maybe more) was arrested after being pulled over in the van and that they were from Long Island, not Connecticut. Can’t imagine the route our little van took to get to that point, but D Google Mapped it and it was about 150 miles from us, over two and a half hours away.

Then the run around began. We weren’t going to go to Long Island if our van was just going to be deemed “totaled,” so they insurance people sent out a claims adjuster. Except that this guy couldn’t just walk into the tow yard. No, that would have been too easy and convenient. He needed special paperwork from the police and the police needed paperwork from us (the van’s title and something saying he can look at the van in our place) in order to give the special paperwork to the claims adjuster who would in turn give it to the tow yard. After much back-and-forth with the police, the tow yard, the claims adjuster, and the insurance company and two trips to the UPS store to overnight things (we were reimbursed for this very pricey expense!), one week after we found out where our van was, the claims adjuster was finally able to get in to see it. The guy was supposed to see it two days after we notified the insurance company the van had to been found. But that took a bit longer…

I get a call back not an hour after the claims adjuster arrives at the tow yard, “I’m looking at your van,” he says, “I’m assuming it didn’t have any big dents on the sides or the back.” Umm, no. The conversation got more exciting from there about the van smelling like smoke, bags of teenager’s clothes, and other knicks and dents here and there. It all ended in the words I wanted to hear since we knew they found the van, “I’m just going to take pictures for my boss to review, but I’m considering your van to be a total loss.” Yaaaay! No driving to Long Island to get it (Grammy and Gpa were going to drive with us, there and back, for which D would have had to take an entire day off…), no worries about fixing it up and hoping some then-unknown damage didn’t pop up in the future. We could start fresh!

All we had to do was sign a few more documents and our check would be on the way. Seemed easy enough, and that part was, but the check amount seemed suspiously similar to the amount we indicated what we had bought it for (which was a good amount under the book value). Dad was not satisfied with that number and got on the phone to the insurance company as “our father and our insurance agent,” which he told the lady we had been working with when she inquired who he was calling as, “and I’m upset as both!” he added for good measure. Long story short, I guess they use a bunch of numbers to come up with the amount they’re going to pay out and she used a combination of numbers that got her close to what we had paid (dad got even more upset when she told him that, to which he replied, so if they paid nothing, that’s what you’d give them!? Of course not, was the answer…). After an hour or two, the nice insurance lady called back and magically found over one thousand more dollars that could be added on to our check and we got that amount in the mail a few days later! In the meantime, we had also gotten our homeowners checks (it’s a two stage process, of course, why should it be over in one shot when we could do double the work?!). So ended that part of the process. All we had to do was find another van…

Which was much easier said than done. We didn’t want to buy new or even a few years old because we didn’t want to go into debt, so it turns into a picky process when buying used vans. And it didn’t help that there weren’t a lot of options because apparently everyone keeps their vans until the very end! Anyway, after much Craigslist-ing by D and keeping our eyes peeled wherever we went, Dad and Mom ended up spotting our new ride by the side of the road in a nearby town. The price was right and the van was even nicer (even had an automatic car starter and a six-disc CD changer…). And hopefully that ends the saga of the stolen van. In case you’re wondering, D’s Volvo got booted out of the garage and (after a much-needed garage clean-out), the van took its place…albeit a snug, but good, fit!