My front bumper was damaged recently in an accident. I talked to my bodyshop about replacing the stock bumper with a Type-N bumper instead. The Type-N will undoubtedly cost more than the OEM bumper, but I was wondering if my insurance will at least give me the amount of money the stock bumper is worth. The bodyshop says there might be some difficulty arranging this. What do you guys think?

It's happened before. Depends on your insurance company and body shop. Most of the time your insurance company gets a quote from the shop and they cut you or the shop a check. You can then put that towards the other parts.

^^^ i agree... talk with the shop ... maybe they can fudge the paperwork for an oem. try paying cash on the difference... i've noticed that paying cash seems to open up more possibilities for netotiation with autoshops (in my experience). hope it all works out.

WORD. it just depends on the shop, and your insurance.

Yep, I also agree.

The money is technically yours to do whatever you want with. The insurance company doesn't care if you even have the car repaired, other than if you were to try and claim the same damages again later. But in a lot of 1st party cases, a car will have a lienholder(loan) in which case the insurance company has a duty to protect the lienholder's interest by issuing payment to the registered owner and the legal owner or the registered owner and a shop. There is nothing illegal about doing work to the vehicle that would be considered an upgrade with the money. You may have some contractual requirements with the lienholder however.

The shop is better off not fudging paperwork. Writing up work differently than the actual work done is fraud and the shop owner can be arrested for it.

The exception to all this is if you are a 3rd party to a claim and paid under under someone else's liability policy. An insurance company has no contractual obligation to protect the interest of a lienholder on a third party's vehicle. Therefore the payment would simply just be made out to the registered owner.

Talk to the adjuster, make sure you have your receipt for the bumper, paint, install etc.. they should write you a check with no problem. Just make sure they know it's not an OEM bumber most places dont know the differences and will just assume. If you have SF you should be good.

When I hit a deer last fall the insurance company replaced my clear corners and Injen CAI because they were damaged. State Farm didnt blink an eye.

The last couple of posts seem to assume he already has an aftermarket part on the car already. The original poster is asking if he can opt to have an aftermarket bumper swapped in place of the OEM one when he has it repaired. Which he can. The insurance will only pay for what was on the car, but he can use the money how he wishes.

And getting insurance companies to replace damaged aftermarket parts is not usually a big deal. Some policies will excluded them or may but a limit on them though. This is specially true with companies or policies intended for the sub-standard(higher risk) market.