Luckily, this wasn't an issue - the owner sold the car to collectors for something like 100 times its pre-impact value, and the stone itself for twice that. I trust she got a nicer car with the money.
According to Wikipedia, the 17 year old boy that shortly before the event bought the car for $300 sold it for $25000. I don't think he cried himself to sleep.
I don't know if this is universal, but an insurance won't pay out until a repair has been done and invoiced by a verified garage.
I mean I've had some damage early this year, a guy backed up into our car on a parking lot (his back window was misted and he didn't look properly or respond to the horn), after checking in with the insurance we took it to the garage and everything was handled after that.
Not 100% true, FWIW. I've had scenarios, even recently, where our insurance offered two options:
1) Take it to an approved shop for a full repair
2) They send a check for the estimated repair value to me, and I do whatever I want, which could including pocketing the money and living with the damage.
Granted, "living with the damage" would probably not be feasible in a meteor impact scenario, but for lesser damage it can work.
