Car written off - Insurance query

Elincolnah

Hi, hoping for a bit of advice. I'll keep it as short as I can.

Last week I was involved in a road traffic collision, driver in oncoming car (reason still unknown) came across into my lane and we collided head on.

Car was confirmed written off a few days ago, however I have some questions.

The car was only 6 months old, and I'd only owned it for 4 weeks. It was on finance, I took gap insurance because of the value of the car.

The car was 21k but with added insurances and extras the gap insurance covers me to 25k.

My insurance company and finance company have been discussing the figures, this is my first question. The value of the car will of depreciated in the short space of time, say dropped to 18k. My insurance company will probably offer 16/17k for it which leaves me short, so I'm waiting for exact figure before I can claim the rest of the value on my gap insurance. I'm not sure if I have this right or not please correct me if I'm wrong.

My insurance company will pay 16k (example) off of the finance, then i claim the remainder needed through my gap insurance which would be 9k as I can claim up to 25k on my gap policy. I then pay the balance off and what is left would in theory be about 4k (the deposit I put on the car). Or would it not be likely I be left with any money thus losing the car and my deposit contribution?

Hope that makes sense?

Another question, and the main one really. My insurance company have asked me to pay my excess and the remainder of my policy in full, I pay monthly. So about 5/6 months worth. Is this common? People I have spoken to have said they have never heard of an insurance company requesting that?

Injury wise our claim is being done by our insurer as we had legal protection, just I'm guessing it all takes time.

Thanks for any advice.

rs65

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




9. vehicles recently purchased second-hand

If the consumer only recently bought their car second-hand, we generally assume that they paid the market value price – although we will consider any evidence the insurer can provide that this was not the case.

rs65

Elincolnah wrote: »

Another question, and the main one really. My insurance company have asked me to pay my excess and the remainder of my policy in full, I pay monthly. So about 5/6 months worth. Is this common? People I have spoken to have said they have never heard of an insurance company requesting that?

Quite normal, although you should be able to change the policy to your replacement car and have no instalments left to pay

dacouch

Hopefully you're not insured by Admiral or an Admiral Group Company

Elincolnah

dacouch wrote: »

Hopefully you're not insured by Admiral or an Admiral Group Company

Why do you say that?

Aretnap

It's unlikely that you actually have a monthly insurance contract. What actually tends to happen is that you buy a year's issuance, and the insurer provides a loan which you pay off monthly. If the policy is cancelled for any reason (eg because the car is written off) you still owe the balance of the loan. Often it will be deducted from the write off value.

As above though you should be able to transfer the remaining months Of the policy to your new car - see point 17 of the link in post 2.

dacouch

Elincolnah wrote: »

Why do you say that?

If you were with virtually any other Insurer except Admiral group they would just replace a car that was purchased from new with you the first owner and you wrote it off in the first year with a brand new car

I guess you're with Admiral then.

Incidentally, many Gap policies will leave a small short fall if in their opinion your own Insurer did not pay the true market value

Elincolnah

dacouch wrote: »

If you were with virtually any other Insurer except Admiral group they would just replace a car that was purchased from new with you the first owner and you wrote it off in the first year with a brand new car

I guess you're with Admiral then.

Incidentally, many Gap policies will leave a small short fall if in their opinion your own Insurer did not pay the true market value

That doesn't sound good. They've been pretty quick to act and helpful enough so far. We got the car (Audi) from audi themselves, ex demo car so never owned by anyone. Approx 6 months old when we got it.

Our GAP policy insures us to the value of 25K, which with my basic maths skills should be able to cover the car and return us our deposit of 4K. That's what I hope anyway.

Be very unhappy if after treating ourselves to a new car, someone else writing it off we actually end up out of pocket.

magpiecottage

dacouch wrote: »

Incidentally, many Gap policies will leave a small short fall if in their opinion your own Insurer did not pay the true market value

Elincolnah wrote: »

Be very unhappy if after treating ourselves to a new car, someone else writing it off we actually end up out of pocket.

The answer to this (if it happens) is probably to complain to both insurers that you have been shortchanged. If neither budges you then take both to FOS.

Elincolnah

Just a quick query I have following on from previous posts now I have received figures.

Value outstanding of finance is -£19,073.00

Our insurance have given value of £19,350 for our car which is more than I expected.

However less excess & remainder of policy that comes to 889. Then leaves our finance a shortfall of approx £600 which is what our GAP insurance is for. However our Gap policy covers us to claim to the maximum value of 25K.

Does that mean we can claim from our gap insurance up to value of 25k minus the 19k from our insurer? So approx 5-6k. Or will our gap insurance just pay the shortfall of £600? If so we're losing approx 3k from our deposit and part exchange.

Thanks

mcjordi

that depends if your gap is a return to invoice or just a standard pay the rest of the finance off if insurance doesnt cover it...