Car insurance, Excess and Insured amount

Lorry26

Today my partner has written off our car. It is very clearly a write off, no insurance company will repair it. Thankfully my partner is fine and now intot ht enitty gritty of the insurance.

the first thing I did was check the policy. I own the vehicle but the policy is in her name. There is an Excess of £250 but I was more concerned about the insured amount. The amount insured for is £2500 but having done a little research on autotrader, the nearest vehicle to the one written off is more like £3000-£3500. I can see what has happened when asked on the phone someone has made a guess as to the value of the car which I have owned for the last 6 years when taking out the policy.

Does this mean that the maximum I can expect on an insurance payout is £2500 - the excess? Can i push for more if I can show the vehicle was worth more? How long until I can expect a payout?

Many thanks in advance

Quentin

Autotrader prices aren't market values.

The asking price is inflated as most buyers expect to make offers below the asking price.

vaio

you'll get market value which as far as an insurance claim is concerned is the retail replacement value and nothing to do with how you acquired the car.

The starting point for this is set by the FOS as the average of the values given in three price guides (Caps, Glasses & Parkers) with any value that is significantly different to the other two being ignored. This can then be adjusted to reflect mileage, history, owners etc.

Have a look at http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

adamc260

Your policy isn't an agreed value but a market value one so as said above I wouldnt worry.