Car Insurance - How Does It Work?

as400

Tonight a car drove into mine.

He was driving too fast on approach to a roundabout, mounted a curbed island, lost control and drove into the near side engine area of my Audi.

It was all caught on another cars dashcam.

The police admitted it was a clear case.

Do I claim off his insurance?...do I claim from my insurance?....my car cost me £10K (Audi A6) last December. It is financed.

My dread is either mine or his insurance company saying "oh your car is only worth £5K here is the cheque" (which I guess will go straight to the finance company)....leaving me with no car, no money and an outstanding finance debt, with non of this being my fault.

Can't I insist that his insurance company either replaces or repairs my car to the previous situation?....this was his fault...why should I suffer?

Quentin

Assuming liability is clear cut, then approach the third party insurer and see if they have an innocent third party claims dept. who will deal with your claim.


If not consider using an accident management company.


If your car is a write off then you can expect its pre incident market value as the payment you will get.


If that doesn't cover the outstanding finance, then that is something you will have to swallow (the third party is not to blame for the way you financed your purchase!)

teddysmum

Some one ran into the back of my car , a few weeks ago, while I was stationary at a roundabout.


We did not even have to contact the other person's insurance, as they rang us.

maddogb

most insurers have this "market value" type liability limitation in their policies, am in the process of testing this in court against Esure who did similar to me.
For the moment wait and see, you might not have to fight, check out parkers, cap, and glasses guides this "may" give you an idea of what you will receive post the values here if you can.

Retrogamer

Did you take out GAP insurance?

EdGasket

Retrogamer wrote: »

Did you take out GAP insurance?

Ideally one wouldn't need to do that.

Quentin

EdGasket wrote: »

Ideally one wouldn't need to do that.

Do you appreciate the problem that GAP insurance solves?


(When a car is a total loss then it's market value may be far less than the amount of loan outstanding on it - total depreciation being higher than your total repayments)

Jamiesmum

Did they total it? Is it fixable? If it's fixable then they will. If they write it off but you can fix it you take the insurance money and fix it and carry on paying your finance as usual.

If it's totaled and they deem it unroad worthy then yeah you'll be out of pocket but that's life unfortunately. You'll only get what the car is worth and not what you've paid for it.

Always better to drive a cheaper car you've bought outright than it is to finance it, technically the car isn't yours - it's only on loan to you until you've paid it off and so it does fall on you to keep it safe regardless of how other road users act.

Sucks to be in that situation though. Do you have any pictures of the damage?

PPPro

as400 wrote: »

Tonight a car drove into mine.

He was driving too fast on approach to a roundabout, mounted a curbed island, lost control and drove into the near side engine area of my Audi.

It was all caught on another cars dashcam.

The police admitted it was a clear case.

Do I claim off his insurance?...do I claim from my insurance?....my car cost me £10K (Audi A6) last December. It is financed.

My dread is either mine or his insurance company saying "oh your car is only worth £5K here is the cheque" (which I guess will go straight to the finance company)....leaving me with no car, no money and an outstanding finance debt, with non of this being my fault.

Can't I insist that his insurance company either replaces or repairs my car to the previous situation?....this was his fault...why should I suffer?

You need to contact your insurance company and report that you have been involved in an accident.

If you are insured fully comp, then your insurer will deal with the matter ... and you should let them as that is what you paid for.

If not fully comp, the insurer will not help you with your claim, but will help you should the other driver not see things quite as you do and so claims against you.

But lets assume for the sake af arguement, it is as clear cut as you say. No matter who you give the claim to, the other driver's insurance will pay out ... but only to the market value of the vehicle (otherwise you'll be making money out of the deal)

Let me explain.

Say the car is worth £5k as you suggest.
Say you owe the lender £6k

The day before the accident, you had a car worth £5k, yet owed someone £6k.

If the car is written off, then you will receive £5k. That will go to the lender, meaning you then owe £1k

But you could borrow another £5k to buy a replacement vehicle.

Net result, you will have a car valued at £5k and owe a lender (or two) £6k.
i.e. The £5k borrowed against the replacement car plus the £1k balance you owe against the written off car.

The root of your problem appears to be that you overpaid for the car in the first place.

You say you paid £10k 6 months ago (so it was obviously a used car then), yet now, or rather just before the accident, it was only worth £5k :cool:

As Retrogamer implies, particularly because of the values involved, you should have considered taking out GAP insurance to cover the situation you now find yourself in.