Help and advice needed

cazmo

Found this forum after hours of trawling through insurance sites looking for help,hope someone on here can give me a bit of advice.we have a static caravan that is 10 years old but in great condition (well it was) we put double glazing in it,new carpets,new fitted kitchen and decorated thro out.when we insured it we were asked what we paid for it we told the broker £10.000 (True)and they said to insure it for £11.000 which we did.Two weeks ago the wind blew the roof off and the caravan was written off,the insurance has said they will only pay out £4.300 as this is the book price of the van even tho our site has sent them a fax valueing it at £10.000.Can any one suggest any thing we can do to get them to pay out more.We assumed as we were paying premiums to insure for £11000 that was what we could claim

chemlock

No sure if this will help but it works for cars.

My friend had an immaculate restored Ford Escort which unfortunately was written off. They offered him the book price which was did represent the actual value. He sent them all the invoices and a lot of photo graphic evidence showing the condition of the vehicle prior to write. They then re-adjusted there offer to cover the true cost.

Maybe he was lucky I don't know but it sounds to me like you will have a lot of invoices for the work done and can pretty much prove the value.

Of course if it's insured like a house then you only get a rebuild cost which they automatically take as a percentage of the purchase cost so maybe that is what is happening here.

I guess that didn't help a great deal but sending them proof of cost is worth a try.

Astaroth

Unless you insured it for a fixed sum (generally this is only done for things like classic cars) then you will have covered it for the lower of the sum insured and the pre loss value.

Not being up on caravans from either a personal or an insurance perspective I cant recommend sources but the principle will be the same as motor where you argue the valuation based on the sale price (not advertised price) of other comparable caravans for sale - likewise sending copies of the invoices for the recent work will also support your argument for a higher settlement.