No fault accident - Vehicle service costs recovery

aravindb4u

Hello all,

I had a no fault accident and the third party has accepted liability and their insurance had accepted to recover all losses due to the accident. The insurance repair company estimated the repair to be 5000£ , so would better off to be written off and pay the market value for my car to me.

Now the issue is I have only purchased the vehicle 8 months back for 2500£ and did a service (+ cambelt change etc) right after purchase which costed me 575£. So in total I will be losing 2500 + 575 = 3075£ if the vehicle is written off which is more likely to happen. Just 2 weeks before accident I did MOT for 55£. So will come to a total of 3130£ loss.

Assuming my current car insurance and road tax are transferrable to my new car and not considering them as losses, I am expecting 3130£ as compensation from the 3rd party insurer. So far I have been genuine and honest and doesn't opted for a hire car and reassured them I don't have any personal injury as I dont want to be unfair or dishonest.

However they said they will pay me the market value of my car which they came up as 2655£. They said vehicle servicing costs are not classified as loss as they are just maintenance. However my point is I wont be losing it if the vehicle is not written off in first place. What options do I have?

The insurance company also told me that if I want to retain the vehicle then they would just offer 2125£, When I calculated salvage scrap price for my vehicle it comes to 250£.So I would be better off accepting the 2655£ from the insurers? Is there no way can I recover my servicing costs as loss for the vehicle to be written off, as I have invested it on the vehicle?

I have free legal costs covered in my insurance, so should I take the route to my insurance legal team ? Or do you people think its just waste of time as vehicle servicing costs cant be recovered? Any advise is largely appreciated and thanks in advance.

Thanks

Quentin

Your legal costs insurance probably is just to get back your uninsured losses off a liable third party (check the wording of the cover in your policy) and won't assist you over this unless you just have third party cover.


In any case the insurer is correct in saying they are only liable for the pre incident market value of the car, so £2655 for a car that cost you less looks a good offer.


The advantage in buying back the salvage is when you want to keep the car and a back street garage can repair it for you for less than the settlement after deducting the salvage cost.


Your call on that one!

aravindb4u

Thanks for the response.. Just in case if I decide to repair it myself would the insurer liable to pay me the repairing costs, lets say if it comes to 4000£, would it be under the insurer's obligation to pay for it if I dont accept their market value offer and decide to repair it? Lets say the car is sentimental to me and I dont want to be written off? In which case would they negotiate to offer me more?

tberry6686

They will only offer you the market value of the car. The cost of repair is irrelevant if they decide to write it off.

forgotmyname

They pay you the market value minus the money you pay them to buy it back.

So they offer £2600 and say you can keep it for £300. You wil £2300 and to keep the car. What happens after that is all down to you. Repair it or dont not their problem.

Aretnap

The insurers are correct that you can't claim for the work you've done on the car - just its market value at the time of the accident (ie the cost of buying another car of the same age, mileage and mechanical condition).

Any car of a certain age will have had a fair amount spent on maintaining it over the years and will have some new or nearly new parts - that's already factored into the valuation. Certainly it's frustrating to have a car written off a few months after you've changed the cambelt, but if you were to use the payout to go out and buy a similar second hand car there's nothing to say that the replacement car wouldn't have a newish cambelt as well, so it's not obvious that you've actually lost out. And if it doesn't have a new cambelt it might be that it has a new clutch, whereas unknown to you your clutch only had a few months left in it, so what you lose with one hand you can gain with the other.

You can of course complain if you don't think the payout is enough to buy an equivalent car. If you bought it knowing that the cambelt needed replacing you presumably paid a bit less than you would have done for a car with no known faults... but OTOH it's had eight months of depreciation since then, so taking that into account as well getting £155 more than you paid for it is probably not a bad outcome.

You can't insist that the insurer pays repair costs if they come to more than the value of the car. If you want to keep the car and repair it yourself you can, but in that case their liability is merely the diminution in value that it has suffered as a result of the accident, ie the pre-accident value minus its current (scrap) value. If you think you can fix it yourself for less than that then great; if you can't then the insurer doesn't have to pay the extra.

aravindb4u

Thanks a lot for the responses.
I think I'd be better off accepting the market value then. Its very unfortunate being written off after servicing, cambelt change and MOT recently done. That's life.
Its my first accident in my all these years of driving. Good learning experience I would say.
Just in case if I accept the offer from 3rd party insurer, and if they pay me and take the vehicle on lets say 15th April. Within how much time would I be able to transfer my insurance to the new car I would purchase? Is there a lee way or grace time before I can transfer my insurance to new car? I have paid my insurance for the year in full last year and still have 3 months left on it. I know depends on my insurer & policy but generally/usually how much time I have in hand?

Quentin

You need to check with your insurer on how long they will suspend your policy till you put a replacement car on cover (some have short periods)


Before you buy your new car ensure that your insurer will cover it - if they don't "like" it for any reason that will mean you having to cancel your policy (cancellation fees and no NCD awarded for the part year on cover)

Fletch7

aravindb4u wrote: »

Assuming my current car insurance and road tax are transferrable to my new car and not considering them as losses

Your tax is not transferable between vehicles. (Splitting hairs, it's not road tax, it's Vehicle Excise Duty )

sheramber

Tesco allowed us a month from pay out to insure our new car on the same insurance policy.

aravindb4u

ok it looks like my insurers charge me 50£ as admin fee to transfer insurance to the new car.

And I have contacted the 3rd party insurer and they said they cant reimburse my MOT costs & admin fee costs to transfer my insurance as they are not considered a loss.

So all in all, someone bumped into my serviced , MOT-ed car not my fault, and write it off and offer me a market value and I can't recoup any of my servicing costs + MOT costs + insurance transfer fee. These are not considered as loss, really? I pay for it right so its a loss for me if someone write my car off? honestly atleast the insurance transfer fee should be recoup-able right? Can't believe this insurance industry... lots of jargons, no frankness or practicality