For over seven months, the City of Parsons has been in a verbal tug of war with their prior insurer over the fate of the City’s three-year-old garbage truck that spontaneously caught on fire due to an electrical fault.
“I did hear back from the insurance company again regarding the garbage truck and I am going to have to talk to our attorney tomorrow, maybe the Insurance Commission,” Parsons City Manager Michael Simmons said.
The City of Parsons has been making payments on the truck and a lease payment on a rental that is higher than the truck payment, while waiting on a determination from the insurer, West Virginia Corp.
“They are willing to total the truck and give us X amount of dollars or we can keep the truck and sell it for salvage and they’ll take some money off,” Simmons said.
Simmons said he had spoken to some vendors who had given him fair value on the truck. The problem, however, was in the fact the insurer would not total the packer until it was examined.
“The problem is you can’t get a truck because it was custom built for this packer wherever they got it at,” Simmons said. “So we can’t do anything really until we find out if the packer is damaged, which the wiring and stuff is melted. They’ll tell us what they will offer us for the truck part, but not the packer, so it really doesn’t do us any good.”
The bank would be contacting Simmons on what the payoff amount would be, Simmons said. Should the City be able to pay the truck off, a supplier currently was offering a year’s deferred payments, which Simmons said he thought would work out about even, with what the City was paying in payments and lease payments on the two trucks currently.
“With what we would save making payments and leasing the rest of the year, we’ll probably make up the difference,” Simmons said. “Then we’d be starting fresh.”
“If we pick that deal, it eliminates the insurance company putting Western Star on notice,” Simmons said. “And unless they accept being put on notice, they will not compensate us for our rental that we’ve had to pay for the last seven months.”
Simmons said that the only option left for the City in that case would be to get the City’s attorney involved.
“Its been too long. Something’s go to happen,” Simmons said.
