CAR INSURANCE: Caught out by CompareTheMarket car insurance autofill value...

SJM007

Has anyone been "caught out" by CompareTheMarket's helpful AUTOFILL FIELD for THE VALUE OF THE CAR being insured? This innocuous little field, easily passed over when entering your details, ended up being the value upon which my comparison was based, the resulting insured value of my car and final value that the insurance policy will pay out on following a total loss.

THE PROBLEM: The value used by CompareTheMarket is between £1,460-£2,010 LESS than the true market value of the car (CAP, AutoTrader) . I tried it with my parents' car and there was a similar shortfall.

Yes I should have probably checked this field but I didn't think I would ever have to claim ALSO the text in the hover over pop-up says "Please note in the event of a claim the insurer will generally pay the market value of your car." not in my case!

I'm now looking forward to spending tomorrow wrangling with CompareTheMarket and my insurance company to resolve the matter.

Is the autofill, similar to other general details about the car being insured, a little overly helpful? Mmmmmm....

Any advice/experiences greatly received.
Thanks
An Ex-Comparison Website User

EdGasket

WHat does your insurance document say? Mine says 'Market Value' so if it says that then you are OK.

dacouch

Has your car been written off?

The reason I ask is that the value of the vehicle entered when obtaining the quote is not the limit to what your Insurer pays you for your car.

If you have inadvertently under estimated the value of your vehicle then the Insurer is obliged to pay out the higher amount even if it's more than the value you declared when taking out cover

SJM007

Thanks for your replies - yes total loss - the policy says ....
Section 1 Accidental Damage
What Is Covered?
If your car is damaged by accident, vandalism or malicious damage, we may:
pay the cost of repairs to your car; or
replace what is lost or damaged; or
make a settlement payment based on either the market value of your vehicle at the time of loss or the declared insured sum, whichever is the
lesser amount.

... The declared insured sum is the auto fill figure from CTMarket!!!
Any suggestions how to progress?
Regards

dacouch

SJM007 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies - yes total loss - the policy says ....
Section 1 Accidental Damage
What Is Covered?
If your car is damaged by accident, vandalism or malicious damage, we may:
pay the cost of repairs to your car; or
replace what is lost or damaged; or
make a settlement payment based on either the market value of your vehicle at the time of loss or the declared insured sum, whichever is the
lesser amount.

... The declared insured sum is the auto fill figure from CTMarket!!!
Any suggestions how to progress?
Regards

Refer your Insurer to this from the Ombudsman or show them this thread.

"2. our general approach

In most cases, we assess the market value as the retail price which the consumer would have had to pay for a comparable vehicle at a reputable dealer, immediately before the date of the damage or theft.

This may be lower than the price at which the vehicle is advertised, as the dealer may have built in a margin for negotiation. It is likely to be higher than the price payable in a private sale or at an auction and also higher than the trade value (which is the price a dealer would pay before adding its mark-up).
We are likely to award the consumer the full retail value – even if they inadvertently underestimated the value of the vehicle when filling in the proposal form or luckily bought the vehicle for less than it was worth. And we have seen exceptional cases where a vehicle’s value genuinely rose between the date it was bought and the date of the damage or theft."

http://web.archive.org/web/20151023133911/http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

The above is an archived page

The Ombudsman has made this web page more "User friendly" by removing most of the actual information. The current version of the page is thus http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/motor-valuation.html

However the Ombudsman will still use their original approach.

Your Insurer cannot overide the Ombudsman with the wording of your Policy.

If a simple reminder to your Insurer does not work, you will need to make an "Official Complaint" which they are duty bound to properly investigate (It's carried out by more experienced staff) and they have eight weeks to respond). If they're stupid enough to still ignore it then you can then take it to the Ombudsman who if they agree you made a genuine mistake will instruct your Insurer to pay the correct amount possibly along with a small amount of compensation.

Some people report that they ring the Ombudsman before making the Official Complaint and the Ombudsman calls the Insurer on their behalf or drafts the Official Complaint letter. This can put pressure on the Insurer.

Please update this thread when your Insurer play ball so overs in your position who google it in the future find it

SJM007

OMG thank you so much. I will report back tomorrow.
Thank you thank you

SJM007

Disappointingly, the insurance company is standing by its guns and quoting the wording of its policy and will not change the compensation to the market value of the car. I've raised a complaint via the ombudsman.

I will keep updating this thread and if anyone has any more input it would be much appreciated.
Regards

paddyandstumpy

I think Dacouch's advice is spot on. You've already raised a complaint to the FOS so it'll be passed to your insurer to respond to in the first instance.

EdGasket

SJM007 wrote: »

Disappointingly, the insurance company is standing by its guns and quoting the wording of its policy and will not change the compensation to the market value of the car. I've raised a complaint via the ombudsman.

I will keep updating this thread and if anyone has any more input it would be much appreciated.
Regards

That's not very accomodating of them! It was a genuine mistake and they should be prepared to fix it now you have spotted it. That might result in a slight extra premium due to the increased value at risk but I wouldn't have thought it would make much difference.

Who is the insurer so I can avoid them?

Mungo76

That's a nasty wording, and far from what could be considered standard.

Potentially a lurch forward from underwriters? policy wording changes tend to creep in until they become the norm.

As Edgasket has said, name and shame.

SJM007

EdGasket wrote: »

That's not very accomodating of them! It was a genuine mistake and they should be prepared to fix it now you have spotted it. That might result in a slight extra premium due to the increased value at risk but I wouldn't have thought it would make much difference.

Who is the insurer so I can avoid them?

Thanks everyone for their input, I just hope the process with the FOS ends favourably. Lesson learnt also.
I'm all for naming and shaming and will update when the dust settles a little.
Many thanks