How long for an insurance settlement figure?

fat-pudding

Hi,

Back in September I had a minor accident (nobody injured) which due to the value of the car wrote it off. Anyhow, Insurance company wrote the car off on the 14th of October and told me settlement would be coming soon. I've now been told that they're having trouble getting a value out of Glasses and they are waiting on them (they've said this twice now), has been like this now for nearly 2 weeks and today the same excuse has been given again.

It's not a rare car, and Glasses managed to give me a valuation via their website (as did CAP and Parkers). I've told the insurance co. (Admiral) that if they don't give a figure by Friday I'll be making a formal complaint to them via their complaints procedure as it will be over 3 weeks since they wrote the car off.

Am I expecting results too quickly? I'm not that bothered as I have covered the cost of a replacement car from funds in the bank, but this has eaten heavily into my reserves and my safety net is gone and I obviously don't want to be waiting forever. I'm still expecting them to give the poor offer and me having to fight it... just, it sounds like a very long time to me? Are they mucking me about or is this normal? I'm keen to get this done as the insurance co. said it was a 50/50 liability accident so I still need to claim my uninsured losses off the other party.

Quentin

With you being held 50% responsible, then you will only be able to get 50% of your uninsured losses off the other party, but you don't need to wait. You can start pursuing that claim now.

Lum

Admiral are bloody awful. They dragged out one of my claims for 2.5 years after a driver insured by them drove into the back of me. I had to pay for the repairs myself in order to keep my NCB and it took threats of court action to get my money back.

Kira000

If you have a look at my threads, you will find one about my recent write off experience, which might help.

In my opinion, based on my experience of the situation and the games they played, insurance companies and their valuation engineers deliberately take as long as possible to come to a figure, knowing some people will be desparate to get their money and will therefore accept the first figure they are offered no matter how poor it is. It took over 7 weeks to get a figure from my insurers, and then when challenged, another 2.5 weeks to come back to me with a new offer..

Keep pushing them, keep researching prices yourself, so you know what you REALISTICALLY can push for. I.e What are they actually being sold for out there. If there is one particularly expensive or cheap on autotrader ring the dealer/advertiser and ask them about the car. A really cheap one may have been in an accident or stolen and hence cheap, and not have it in the details unless you ask but the assesor may still use it as a reason to down price yours unless you can argue why not.. a really expensive one may have some other feature or engine etc you dont know about, which may rule it out of being used by you as a comparator against yours.

hth

Kira