dealing with insurance after classing your car as Total Loss

sush40

Hi

I recently had a car crash and I wasn't at fault. The other driver's insurance took everything in charge (got a courtesy car and sent car to garage for repairs).
Unfortunately, the garage informed me the car was classed as a total loss (damaged beyond economical repair, Category C).
The insurance company (Auto Accident Claims) asked whether I wanted to keep the salvage and get the money to get the car fixed, or if I wanted them to dispose of the car (and basically buy a new one). I have decided to not retain the salvage.

At this point I'm not sure what the following steps are; the company asked to send all the car documents (V5 and MOT).
1) Should I send the documents straight away?
2) Will they contact the DVLA to ''write off'' the car, and what do I need to be careful about?
3) They sent a valuation of my car, should I negotiate it BEFORE sending the V5 if I'm not happy with it?
4) They have estimated the car at £5430 before damage. If I'm right, they would offer me £3530 plus the salvage value which is at £1900. How does it work, am I supposed to get £3530 first and then wait for the salvage money once they get rid of the car?
5) They said they would ''raise the salvage amount once they've received the documents''. Does it mean the salvage money could be different from what they've promised?


Thank you

InsideInsurance

Auto Accident Claims clearly are not the insurer so who are they and how did they get into the picture?

sush40

Apparently it is the company in charge of dealing with the claim, they have been appointed by KGM Motor Insurance (the other driver's insurance)

InsideInsurance

So it does partially depend on the level of delegated authority they have from the insurer.

There are no standard practices across the industry and so different firms have different approaches and arguably the smaller players in any particular market can be more non-standard.

The norm would be that the gross payment is made to you and you arent made to "wait" for the salvage element if you've decided not to retain the car. How much they get for the salvage is irrelevant as its the valuation of its pre-accident value that is key as thats what they must pay to indemnify you - if they get 99% back from a salvage yard then great for them but its irrelevant to you if its 99% or 1%

In my claims days we paid out first and asked for documents second but we were more unusual in this. Most probably agree first and then ask for docs and finally pay - getting docs is much harder when the money is in the bank.

sush40

This is what the letter from this company says :

''Further to the above, it is confirmed that your vehicle has been damaged beyond economical repair. We value your vehicle at £5430.OO including its accessories and fitted sound reproduction equipment, less £1900.50 for the salvage of the vehicle, a net sum of 23529.50.

Our cheque in the sum of 3529.50 in respect of your pre-accident value will follow under separate cover. This payment is made strictly without prejudice to liability and should be banked on account of damages generally as if by order of the court.''

From what I understand, I will first receive a cheque of 3529.50 then 1900.50 once they've sorted the disposal of the salvage, am I right?

Quentin

Get them to confirm your understanding! It originally looked as though they retained the salvage value till they got the docs from you

InsideInsurance

sush40 wrote: »

This is what the letter from this company says :

''Further to the above, it is confirmed that your vehicle has been damaged beyond economical repair. We value your vehicle at £5430.OO including its accessories and fitted sound reproduction equipment, less £1900.50 for the salvage of the vehicle, a net sum of 23529.50.

Our cheque in the sum of 3529.50 in respect of your pre-accident value will follow under separate cover. This payment is made strictly without prejudice to liability and should be banked on account of damages generally as if by order of the court.''

From what I understand, I will first receive a cheque of 3529.50 then 1900.50 once they've sorted the disposal of the salvage, am I right?

I would speak to them, it sounds like they have assumed you wanted to retain the salvage. When we wrote the letter for someone retaining the salvage it would be similar to the above but if we were retaining the salvage there was no mention at all of salvage, what its value was etc.

The salvage is irrelevant to you, you must be indemnified which they have judged to mean giving you £5,430 (or a repaired vehicle)

If you were keeping the salvage then its value becomes relevant and it would be equally argued as much as the headline figure.

sush40

Thank you for your replies.

They sent the letter before I agreed to not keep the salvage, as I had the option to keep it. I then sent an email to this company confirming I didnt want to retain the salvage.
I contacted them again and they said they have sent the cheque of 3529.50 today. They are waiting for the car documents (v5, MOT, etc) so they ''will raise the salvage amount once we have received the documents''.

sush40

I didn't have the chance to negotiate the car value, do you think I can dispute the salvage value, if they're sending this money later? I got a new set of tyres fitted a couple of months ago, and the car condition before the crash was excellent...

Quentin

Yes you can dispute their valuation. Get your evidence of your car's valuation and get on to them. You want to dispute the pre crash value, not the salvage value.


(The car presumably had to have tyres, so don't expect this to make much difference!!)

InsideInsurance

sush40 wrote: »

I didn't have the chance to negotiate the car value, do you think I can dispute the salvage value, if they're sending this money later? I got a new set of tyres fitted a couple of months ago, and the car condition before the crash was excellent...

You'd dispute the valuation of the car, the salvage is irrelevant, they've just done a split payment as they've made an assumption and now holding on to the last bit to "encourage" you to send in your docs so they can cleanly deal with the salvage.

Tyres, condition etc all should have been taken into account already but realistically if you were buying a secondhand car how much extra would you pay for a car with brand new tyres fitted -v- ones that are older but still have 20,000 miles left in them?

You are claiming from the TPI so cannot go to the FOS but its still worth reading their guidance on how they believe vehicles should be valued http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html