Car write off help!

bigjl

Well done at getting a fair valuation, the person that was trying to knock you down in settlement was probably a loss adjuster, basically his job is to lessen the amount the insurance pays out, a fairly common tactic, I was in a similiar position a few years ago, and managed to get the offer increased from £5000 to £8000.

My point was that if they thought that was what it was worth then they could but me one and deliver it.

I was fortunate in that my car was a special order, due to the autobox, and only 4 where registered in the UK in the year i bought my car.

Sometimes persisitence and a bit of research is invaluable.:D

Kira000

bigjl wrote: »

My point was that if they thought that was what it was worth then they could but me one and deliver it.

I was fortunate in that my car was a special order, due to the autobox, and only 4 where registered in the UK in the year i bought my car.

Sometimes persisitence and a bit of research is invaluable.:D

Totally agree! Made me laugh yesterday, when he made a big deal about how hard this case had been and that it had only taken so long, as they hadnt been able to find any examples of cars like mine..... i literally spent 2-3 hours every day for several weeks scouring the internet to come up with the 6 i found. Lets face it, an assesor has so many cases to deal with, they are never going to be able to put in that amount of time on one car. Offering me the price of an 07/07 model example, plus a £200 more to adjust the year, instead of using my 08/08 examples, was never going to work!:rotfl:

bigjl

He was just hoping that you would fold at the first offer, some do, I suppose you can't blame him, but it does seem unfair to try and profit from somebodies lack of experience of claiming on their car insurance.

Lum

bigjl wrote: »

He was just hoping that you would fold at the first offer, some do, I suppose you can't blame him, but it does seem unfair to try and profit from somebodies lack of experience of claiming on their car insurance.

Insurance companies first responsibility is to their shareholders, not to you.

If it's legal they are pretty much obliged to try it.


That said, of all the insurance companies I've dealt with, Direct Line have certainly been one of the better ones, especially with their no NCB loss thing for uninsured driver and vandalism claims. (Though do note that there is no NCB gain either, so technically it's still a loss of 1 years potential NCB)

Kira000

You guys are right. I am just very fortunate also, that my husband had enough savings to put down the deposit on my new car for me. Otherwise, given their car hire is for 2 weeks only, i would have been totally scr*wed by their delaying tactics as there is no public transport from home to work and all in all its taken about 9 weeks to get to a settlement figure- it took 5 weeks from the accident, 3 weeks since the assesor inspection, to give me even a first settlement figure. I guess they count on the fact some people will be so desperate for cash for a new car, they will agree to anything. I was pee'd off by their obvious stalling, but at least i knew i could wait them out.
Should add, i insisted it was not acceptable, given the delays, that they then make me wait 5-10 days for the cheque to be processed and arrive, so they have agreed to do a free one day transfer.
Also recommend you check what finance settlement figure they will use (if you have finance outstanding). I checked the figure myself yesterday with Ford. When i rang this morning they were going to use a higher one they got on the 6th Sept, which expires in 3 days, since which i have made another car payment, so i would have lost out about another £130. I insisted they rang today and got a new figure and thats put another £120 back in my pocket!

Not sure if it was accidental or "accidentally on purpose" :shocked: (surely not!), but about an hour ago, when the lass rang me to confirm the new finance settlement figure, she very very very quickly went over the numbers of what was finance, and what was coming direct to me.. it didnt seem right, so i asked her to repeat them more slowly so i could add them, and lo and behold, they had set both the payments up using the original settlement figure, not the new increased one. Sneaky.....but caught red handed. I guess not everyone would have noticed, or done the adding up to figure it out. Would have saved them a nice little figure!