We are an innocent third party in a motor accident

losgiganteskid

Rimkh2 wrote: »

Hello,
Our car was recently involved in an accident. The other driver immediately admitted full responsibility and thanked us for our driving skills in limiting damage to his car and injury to himself.
His insurers provided us without qualm a replacement rental car until we were roadworthy again. This was over six weeks ago.
The insurers offered us over a month ago £650.00 for the value of our 13 year old car. This we declined. The only vehicle with matching spec to ours that we could find online was priced at £1600.00. It was also 250 miles away. Our car also has a cherished plate, we have owned it for 12 years of its life. Subsequent to the original offer a cheque arrived from the insurer for the sum of £756.00 with no letter of explanation to its meaning or warning of its arrival. We returned this to the insurer by registered post with a covering letter. Emphasising our position. No response. Two weeks and several emails to them later another cheque for the identical amount arrived again with no warning or explanation. They have subsequently used the hire car company to contact us and warn of removing the replacement car. This was taken away last week leaving us with no transport and insufficient monies to repair or replace our car which is not roadworthy. We have telephoned the insurer, it takes 15-20 minutes to navigate their telephone claims system part of their recorded message states, if you prefer not to hold email us. We have sent two letters by recorded delivery, 12 emails and not received a single letter or message of response from them. We have never banked their cheques or agreed a settlement figure with them.
What do we do next?

Am I the only one who is starting to believe this thread is not genuine - first time posters are often not what they seem - merely old timers "winding people up" - if the poster is genuine I apologise but frankly bleating on is not going to get you anywhere, if you want to resolve your situation with the other driver your time may be better spent doing as I stated in #5

roonaldo

oscarward wrote: »

Get an accurate Glass's Guide valuation for your vehicle. It can be done online and then see if it matches what the insurers are offering.

This is exactly what OP should do.

The car for sale thats £1600 is irrelevant if overpriced. OP - the make and model of the car is relevent to this, so what is it? There is no shame in owning a 13 year old Fiesta. Mileage and condition are more favourable over how many owners and service history when you are talking of a car this age.

I'm sure insurer has offered too low as they are infamous for this.

Quentin

roonaldo wrote: »

This is exactly what OP should do.....

No.

The OP has already been advised to ignore that advice, and should ignore you repeating it.

The OP's ultimate option is, as previously posted (#2), going to court over this. The FOS won't intervene over this (the third party insurer has no contractual or regulatory obligations to stick to when dealing with third parties).

iammumtoone

OP I do feel you you. I had the same thing happen to me, my old car was written off, not my fault other driver admitted responsibility. I was offered book price value for it, I refused and was offered slightly more but not much. The amount I got for the car was no where near what the car was worth to me. It was a very good car, I had it for years my dad owned it previously from nearly new, therefore I knew its history and for its age it never when wrong always started first time etc. However those points were irrelevant to the insurers they just pay book price maybe a bit extra. I lost out as I couldn't get a replacement car with what they paid me, but unfortunately this is common.

Was the car insured fully comp as I went through my own insurance company to claim to avoid some of the issues you are describing. The other partys insurance did ring me and offer to process the claim with me direct but I decided to conduct everything through mine.

I think you have to look at the positives, the other driver admitted responsibility (this is not always the case) and most of all the other driver was insured, again this is unfortunately not always the case, you would have been worse off in that situation.

jonesMUFCforever

Rimkh2 wrote: »

...I apologise for that previous post famecloud, new to this. That should have been jonesmufcforever who I felt was being a little pompous and insulting.

No problem there - now tell me I was right its a Fiesta.:D:D

chanz4

People forget that auto trader prices are high, as people know people knock them down

roonaldo

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

No problem there - now tell me I was right its a Fiesta.:D:D

it so is isnt it

Filip

The make and model is actually important! If the insurance company have offered you a reasonable price for your car, and sent you a check for the amount then there should be no need for discussion. Conversely, if it is unreasonable you have a case for this thread...so what is it?