Fighting the insurance company and ombudsman

Pyrkie

I would welcome some advice please.

A tree fell on my home and VW T4 van last Halloween and we are still waiting and fighting to get paid out on the van. (House insurance was great - Congregational and General via Kwik Fit - highly recommended).

Anyway, we are disputing the value of the vehicle and getting nowhere fast. We have already escalated our complaint to the Ombudsman and they called today to confirm their findings and they have so far found in the favour of the insurance company.

My issue is that I believe their approach to valuation is flawed. I accept that for most vehicles, using 'book' value is appropriate, but there are exceptions to every rule and these vans are one of those exceptions. In fact, the Ombudsman even advised me today, that of the 3 organisations he approached for valuation, only 1 would give an opinion.

I just don't know where to go from here. The simple fact is, that for the amount they are offering, there is no way we can replace our vehicle with a 'like for like'. That's all we want to do.

We provided some evidence to show the real 'market value' of these vans by using Autotrader and eBay but they argue that the selling price is not necessarily the sale price. I accept this also, but don't think anyone would be 'haggled' by £3-4k which is the difference between what we've been offered and what we believe the van was worth.

Can anyone give me any advice? We've been living a nightmare since last November and although we've now been able to move back home, it feels as if it's never going to end - I just want to get my van back and move on - ASAP!!

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

huckster

Approach say 3 dealers with the details and ask them to confirm how much they would actually sell a vehicle the same as you had.

The FOS decision won't be final unless it is actually them ombudsman telling you their decision. It will be an adjudicator, whose job is to try to deal with the complaint and stop it going to an ombudsman, as if a complaint gets to the ombudsman, they can takes ages to look at. That would be no good for you, as you could be waiting a year or more. You would be better speaking to the adjudicator and saying that you will approach 3 dealers that sell the vehicles and ask them what they could actually sell them for. As the FOS if they come back with the information, would they look at this.

If the FOS can't help, you can issue a court claim against the Insurers, but I would not fancy your chances.

Pyrkie

Thank you. The adjudicator said today that if I wasn't happy I could take it to the Ombudsman but I didn't really understand what he meant as he obivously works for the FS Ombudsman but now I see. I was too upset to ask at the time (


I'm just going to try to obtain as much evidence as I possibly can - dealerships/websites/independent valuation etc and see where that takes me. It's been 9.5 months so far - I guess another few months might be worth it! I just don't want to give in because what they are doing is wrong and it's so unfair!

Thank you for replying.

olly300

On ebay you can get sold prices.

You need to take proper screen shots* of the item with all the details as generally ebay records on sold items are only available for about 3 months.

*Please notice the plural. You will probably need to take about 5-7 different ones so you can get all a particular vehicle's details.