You can blame the costly insurance laws for that part. I have a 2003 Ford Escape with > 230k miles on it. I park it on the side of the road in Manhattan so it has more dings than if it were left out in a hailstorm. Once when it was actually hit hard enough to get a repair I asked the adjuster to please just make it derivable, not like new. She said that was illegal. So I had to pay the entire deductible rather than maybe $200 it might have required.
I'm also with USAA.
Now they say $9,000. There no such thing as “just a dent” with new(er) vehicles. The safety sensors that didn’t keep Tom or the other driver from colliding cost a fortune to replace. The side panel that might just have been dented on an older vehicle was shattered.
And they say it will be done by the end of the month, *sigh*. I assume the repair shop is coordinating their prioritizing with USAA, knowing that we have the rental car coverage until, conveniently, the end of the month.