Insurance payout help

[b1lly]

Week last saturday me and the mrs were on our way to bristol airport to go to prague.

We hadn't gone 3 miles from the house when a lorry driver crashed into us, he admitted liability so that's 1 battle done.

We've had a phone call today and the car's gonna be written off. My question is with regards to what they offer for the car.

As it was the wifes car she would rather buy a replacement car from a garage.

I know people send off adverts for cars to the insurance companies to show how much a similar model would cost, but would they take adverts from garages or is it just private sales.

thanks

 

[Oldtimer49er]

Hi b1lly
Sorry to hear about your accident especially seeing you were going away, I can,t see why there should be any problem with any payout as it wasn,t your fault, there should be no issues with you buying from a garage. I presume all the costs will be picked up by the other drivers insurance, obviously they wont pay for something which is a better spec than what you had, just hope it wasn,t the Twingo 133 . whatever you do be stubbon and get what you want.

 

[b1lly]

thanks for the reply

No it wasn't the twingo, it was the wifes scenic, she won't be getting another one as she's had a few problems that they suffer from. so she'll put the money towards something else.

yeah all costs will be covered by the 3rd party's insurance, we've got a courtesy car atm.

I'll wait to see what they offer, I've been trawling through car adverts all night lol

thanks again

 

[Greg99]

What you have to remember is the member of staff from the insurance company will be targeted on how little money they can get away with offering. They will intially offer you around / under book money if it's written off.Just push back and have a number of like for like examples close to you at the ready to aid the negotiation.

You could also look towards buying it back off at salvage value which would leave you the majority of the settlement in your pocket, however you would have to take into consideration the repair cost of the vehicle and it would be classed as a write off for the rest of its days which will affect the resale value.

 

[b1lly]

^^

buying the car back isn't an option as it wouldn't be worth it, it was a 2005 model

only thing is we don't want to end up arguing too long over their offer as we've been warned ( by our insurers ) that we can't delay things too much with the rental car. I've been told I will ave to accept an interim offer but say that we are not in agreement with the offer and hopefully get the rest later ???

 

[Steven103]

Have you read your policy document? Mine explicity states that the market value is from an independant dealer based on mileage, age and visible condition. Discussion later revealed that optional extras, colour and service history are not accepted as reasons for altering a car (In the case of CS a cup packed, cambelt done LY 182 would be valued the same as a non cambelt, non cup pack silver one) They did move a fair bit in response to autotrader adverts, though there were no 182s (let alone mileage or age, there were simply none) available within 200 miles for what they offered me at first.

My policy document also stated they were legally bound to use 100% genuine parts and had to fix EVERYTHING (i.e. I couldn't say "forget about the scratched wheels" to try and save the car from being a write off)

Scrap value is a percentage, not a number. So if you increase the market value it also costs you more to buy it back.

 

[b1lly]

update

the mrs had a phone from her insurance today and has been offered £3100.

Considering I'd found one on auto trader with less miles than hers for £1999 and others for £2500 (all from garages ), she's accepted their offer.

She's buying a citroen c3 picasso in bitter lemon :banghead: :slap:

 

[Oldtimer49er]

Didn,t she fancy another Scenic then, a Picasso in bitter Lemon ummmmm, sounds like a good payout though, happy ??

 

[b1lly]

yeah happy with the payout as it was 05 authentique with about 85k miles.

in her time of ownership she'd had to have the window regulators done, new dashboard and numerous coils, so she wanted something else.

the colour suits her personality tbh not sure what people will think when I'm behind the wheel though lol but I'll only drive it maybe once a week.

 

[Derelict-UK]

Drive it at night, no one will care!!