How do insurance write offs work?

Obukit

Hi,

Hoping someone can help, as this is the first time I've done this. Someone pulled out of a side road into the NS rear of my car on Friday, which span me 180 degrees into someone's front door. As it's a 1996 Golf with damage both ends although the insurance company haven't assessed it yet I imagine it would be a write off.

The problem is, we bought the car for £340 because the eBay auction was really bad (wrong mileage, wrong MOT date, pictures taken in the dark, etc). So when we got insurance and it asked how much the car was worth I put down £340. However, since then we've had quite a bit of work done to it (new sill, new exhaust, new starter motor). Although only the exhaust has receipts, as I did the rest myself. Looking around prices seem much higher - the cheapest I can find is £595 for a higher mileage model then ours.

I understand insurance is meant to put you "back where you were before" which is all I want but do they have to offer you enough money to buy a replacement car, or can they just say that we valued the car at £340 initially so that's the most they can pay? Do they take into account extra work done on the car? Seems a bit unfair to expect people to be expert car valuers when purchasing insurance.

Will it make any difference that the other party has admitted liability therefore my insurance will be claiming everything from them?

Finally, they've provided a hire car for us to use, but do we have to wait until they agree a price, or can we go ahead and start looking for a replacement car now? The hire car we have is a 2litre petrol so positively drinks fuel compared to the 1.9TDI we had.

Thanks for your help - first time I've ever had to deal with a written off car.

This is our poor car... where it was hit: -



and where it ended up after it's Hollywood-esque spin: -

s_b

to be honest i know you have bettered the car or you could argue bring it up to a reasonable standard but at the end of the day its a 1996 motor car
i cant see you getting very far past £400
you can argue that you cant replace at this figure and rightly so but they will counter argue that they are paying market value
best to do is find similar cars on the likes of autotrader and argue that this is how much money you need

other course is to take person who ran into you to small claims court for out of pocket expenses once you end up taking unrealistic amount off your insurer
do you have legal motor insurance protection? these can help for you to argue your case to getting better recompense

im not an expert by the way just giving my opinion

forgotmyname

2nd hand door, A couple of hours work to pull the rear arch out and a bit of a touch up paint and your back where you were.

Kilty_2

You can look for a new car (and even buy one) all you like - you won't get paid any quicker though.

Obukit

forgotmyname wrote: »

2nd hand door, A couple of hours work to pull the rear arch out and a bit of a touch up paint and your back where you were.

You can't see it in the photos but the rear wheels are both angled about 10 degrees off where they should be. Rear NS wheel arch has also collapsed onto wheel (or suspension damaged? not sure which). Also front bumper/grill is ruined.



Much as I'd love to get it fixed as the engine in these cars are fantastic and it would be a real shame to scrap it, even with scrapyard parts I don't see it being at all economical.

Thanks for all your help though. I have legal cover so will speak to them. I suppose in the end the problem is with any old car the value to the owner of having "devil you know" transport is far more than you will ever get paid.

mikey72

The offer should be based on

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

Obukit

mikey72 wrote: »

The offer should be based on

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

Cheers, thank you. A really useful link.

According to WiseBuyer the retail value of the car is £965 which seems quite incredible - I suppose the difference between dealer/private purchases at this end of the market.

Pigget

I had a 1995 VW Golf written off about a year ago.
I was offered just shy of £700 from the insurance company.

I'm not sure if that helps give you an idea of what to expect.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

one things certain its not coming back once they come and get it.

like above all you can reasonably ask of the insurer is that they put you back to where you were before.

if the other driver is 100% at fault and admitted liability you can either inform your insurers to do the leg work or you can deal directly with the liable drivers insurers and just "inform" your insurers of the accident.

Parva

The lesson to be learned here is never undervalue your purchase! As I understand it the OP has taken out insurance and used £340 as his base figure. He has therefore now limited himself to attaining that base figure minus any excess at the absolute best.

I would suggest that anyone buying a 'bargain' car use the online insurance estimate websites and move that figure up and down until they reach a happy medium. Ultimately, it's not just the cost of the car that needs to be taken into account, it's the hassle involved in settling the claim. Had the car been valued at say £1200 it may have cost an arbitrary sum of say £20 (total conjecture here). Arguing the loss would be so much easier!

dacouch

Parva wrote: »

The lesson to be learned here is never undervalue your purchase! As I understand it the OP has taken out insurance and used £340 as his base figure. He has therefore now limited himself to attaining that base figure minus any excess at the absolute best.

I would suggest that anyone buying a 'bargain' car use the online insurance estimate websites and move that figure up and down until they reach a happy medium. Ultimately, it's not just the cost of the car that needs to be taken into account, it's the hassle involved in settling the claim. Had the car been valued at say £1200 it may have cost an arbitrary sum of say £20 (total conjecture here). Arguing the loss would be so much easier!

The OP has not limited himself to the amount they declared to the Insurer eg £340.

"We are likely to award the policyholder the full retail value, even if he/she inadvertently under-estimated the value of the vehicle when filling in the proposal form or luckily bought the vehicle for less than it was worth. And we have seen exceptional cases where a vehicle’s value genuinely rose between the date it was bought and the date of the damage/theft."

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