Car insurance - write off value

kipperman

Helpful people - I'd appreciate some advice from you.

Long story short - gent drove into the back of my parked car and insurance company have declared it a write off.

The "total loss" department are calling me tomorrow as regards a valuation, and I would like to be fore armed as regards this procedure. Questions I have are
1) What is the most valid source of valuation (I don't mind paying if necessary)?
2) The car is only 2 years old, and I had some extras over an above base price ( climate control and metallic paint) - presumably these will add some additional value?
3) Should me and the insurers fail to agree on a price, what recourse have I?

Thanks in advance


The kipper.

dacouch

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

InsideInsurance

1) There is no primary source otherwise there would be no disputes. CAP and Glass are the main ones for new vehicles but for a variety of reasons this can be skewed and due to differences in methodologies CAP tends to be a little lower than Glass. Other sources are things like Auto Trader ads but remember these show the asking price not the sale price and there is nothing to stop someone giving a stupid asking price

2) Did you declare these modifications to your insurers? If not then it could be a problem as some insurers need to know about anything that isnt part of the base specification. Certainly the two systems do allow you to add "options" and it factors it in to the valuation

3) Who's insurance company is it that you are dealing with? If it is your insurance company then you can put in a complaint and ask for a final written response as you intend to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are not satisfied with their valuation. If it is the third party's insurer your only option is the courts.

kipperman

InsideInsurance wrote: »

1) There is no primary source otherwise there would be no disputes. CAP and Glass are the main ones for new vehicles but for a variety of reasons this can be skewed and due to differences in methodologies CAP tends to be a little lower than Glass. Other sources are things like Auto Trader ads but remember these show the asking price not the sale price and there is nothing to stop someone giving a stupid asking price

2) Did you declare these modifications to your insurers? If not then it could be a problem as some insurers need to know about anything that isnt part of the base specification. Certainly the two systems do allow you to add "options" and it factors it in to the valuation

3) Who's insurance company is it that you are dealing with? If it is your insurance company then you can put in a complaint and ask for a final written response as you intend to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you are not satisfied with their valuation. If it is the third party's insurer your only option is the courts.

Thanks for the replies - I have got a glass's quotation as a starting point. The additional "modifications" were manufacturers options, and in fact looking at the specification for the particular model, it was only metallic paint that was over and above..

Cheers

InsideInsurance

kipperman wrote: »

The additional "modifications" were manufacturers options, and in fact looking at the specification for the particular model, it was only metallic paint that was over and above.

You always need to be careful with this, some insurers talk about "modifications" being anything done to the vehicle after it was manufactured where as others define it as anything that is not standard on the base model. So I currently have to declare my metallic paint to my current insurer plus a few other bits and bobs even though they were all factory fit.