Car insurance claim - I'm almost in tears here....

MarkyMarkD

If it was the other party's fault, you could demand having the car repaired at their expense irrespective of whether the other party's insurers deem it a write-off. However I suspect from the wording of the OP that it was the OP's fault.

Bossyboots

MarkyMarkD wrote:

If it was the other party's fault, you could demand having the car repaired at their expense irrespective of whether the other party's insurers deem it a write-off. However I suspect from the wording of the OP that it was the OP's fault.

Not sure you are right there. Once the insurance company write it off they are supposed to notify DVLA immediately. (I've learned that from more experience than I would care to have had) You can then no longer have the vehicle on the road. I believe you can appeal to DVLA for them to reinstate the car, subject to satisfactory evidence of the car being repaired but I know someone who had the repairs done but DVLA told them they would not re-register the car because they don't want written off cars on the road. (Thats a precis, I will see if they still have the paperwork so I can give an exact quote).

I don't think you can try to recover directly from the other party if they have insurance to cover the accident.

jockettuk

i had a prang last yr. the lady reversed out her drive and smacked right into my car damage worth £800.. we exchanged details and a couple of days later i got a letter from her insurers who would deal with it.. my insurers said they could deal with it but leave it a few days see if they contacted me.. i had no further dealings with my insurance as it all went through hers.. courtesy car etc..

MarkyMarkD

Bossyboots wrote:

Not sure you are right there. Once the insurance company write it off they are supposed to notify DVLA immediately. (I've learned that from more experience than I would care to have had) You can then no longer have the vehicle on the road. I believe you can appeal to DVLA for them to reinstate the car, subject to satisfactory evidence of the car being repaired but I know someone who had the repairs done but DVLA told them they would not re-register the car because they don't want written off cars on the road. (Thats a precis, I will see if they still have the paperwork so I can give an exact quote).

I don't think you can try to recover directly from the other party if they have insurance to cover the accident.

I'm quoting Honest John (https://www.honestjohn.co.uk) regarding this.

If your care is damaged by someone else, they are legally liable to put you back into the position you were in before the accident. That means EITHER repairing your car, OR replacing it with an equivalent.

Your insurer can't write your car off unless you accept it. Their insurer has NO right to write off your car at all.

Now, clearly there are write offs which cannot be repaired in any sensible way. I'm not arguing that those cars should be reparied. But most older cars are economic, not safety-related, write-offs and can be perfectly well repaired. It just costs more than their economic value to do so. That's not your problem if it's a third party fault accident.

IF the cost of a repair is (say) £3,000 and the economic value of the car is (say) £1,500 clearly their insurer is going to offer £1,500. But they are liable for the full £3,000 if you pursue them for a repair - and this is likely to force them to settle for (say) £2,500 which might be the cost of buying a replacement vehicle.

It's rather academic whether you are recovering from them or their insurers (except if they have no money - the insurers are likely to have deeper pockets). The insurers are only settling the liability due from their insured customer to the person whose car they damaged.

RACHIE77

Hi, thanks for your replies everyone, unfortunatley the accident was our fault so the claim will be going through our insurance

I have looked on lots of car selling websites (autotrader, exhange and mart, loot, diamond free ads...) and can only find 6 or 7 examples (can't remember exactly now) of the same make and model/year of registration BMWs for sale in the UK. The price of these cars range from £1,600 to £2,700 so bearing in mind that we paid £2,450 for the car I have told them that realistically if I was to have sold the car I would have advertised it at £2,000 with a view to taking no less than £1,800 if sold privately.

I sent the letter off today with print outs of the other cars I found enclosed in with it.

I guess I can only wait and see what happens now!!!

I think I would have pushed for the car to be fixed but it has extensive front end chassis damage so I dont think it would be safe to do so, well put it this way, I wouldn't drive after seeing what it looks like at the moment no matter how good it looks afterwards! lol!

Not feeling so glum at the moment, am feeling more like I want to kick some corporate butt than anything right now!! Oh and maybe my other halfs who pranged the car in the first place!! :rolleyes:

vansboy

Did you buy your insurance through a broker?

If so, get ?HIM to do the chasing around & talking to the insurance company.

He's made his money from YOU.

& if it was direct type of cover - state CLEARLY that you wish to persue their complaints procedure, as you're far from happy.

Worth a try!

VB

burbs_2

sorry but i have not had time to read all the replies, just using quick reply as in a rush but do not whatever you do accept their first offer. i sold a car for just under £8000 and he wrote it off within 2 months, they offered him £2000 as a first offer. Laughable really but thats what they try to get away with.

reject their offer and let them come back at you. tell them your car is worth more than that if you are sure it is. if you use Parkers and get an exact value that will give more weight to your case. I sell cars for a living, if you pm the details, mileage age etc etc i will give you an exact trade value for the vehicle and you can go from there.

dont panic though

andy88_2

My old Citroen BX was written off when someone turned out infront of me. I was offered £550, sent them about 15 photocopies of ads and recent service history, saying that cars this age tend to have these three or four things wrong (most of the ones I looked at had) but this one has already been fixed. The offer went up to £850, and they let me buy it back for £68.

You could always send in more stuff later just to keep the pressure on. Good luck.

Altarf

Paul_Varjak wrote:

When my car was written off, Cornhill offered me the top price straight away so I accepted.

By 'top price' I mean halfway between what you could sell it to a dealer for and what you could sell it for privately (depends on condition). So, it will be somewhat below the prices you have seen in any private ads and a lot lower than you have seen in trade ads

The insurance company is responsible for putting you back in the position you were in before the accident. Therefore the amount they pay to settle the claim has nothing at all to do with how much you could have theoretically sold your car for if you had chosen to do so before the accident.

The amount that they need to settle the claim is the amount that you will need to spend to buy a new car (less any excess). You should therefore base your claim on dealer forecourt prices (as those will be the only sort of cars where the description has any kind of guarantee), less any discount you could haggle the dealer down.

wolftastic_2

Rachie,

Before you do anything else can I suggest you contact Midlands Claims Recovery

The local BBC radio station regularly recommends this outfit for any motor claims disputes, they come highly recommended.