Car Valuation On Insurance

PeterMcGee

hi there

I have a question about car valuations and insurance quotes..

i recently wrote off my car which was a 62 plate focusST and the insurance company's final offer was $10915 according with thier buyers guide valuations, now i remember when taking the policy out via a price comparison site (march 2017) i changed the car valuation to £12000 from about £10250 which was the sites estimate, now i know i wont get back what i had put down so i thought whats the point of my valuation if they are just going to pay out what thier book price says.

I am going to buy the same car but on a 64 plate so i thought ok would it make any difference to to a quote if i value the car less knowing if its written off in a crash i would just recieve the book price anyway, off i went to the same comparison site and did a quote with my accident on a focusST valued at £13000 which is the price the car is and it came back at £680 give a few pence, i then ran the same quote but changed the cars value to £1000 and was quoted £360.

Legally can i use the cheap valuation if i take the policy out knowing if its written off in a accident god forbid i would still recieve thier book price, to me something isnt right here, if they wont pay out the sum you insured your cars valuation for then would they will pay the same out if you under value it??

Regards
Peter

Quentin

If you deliberately lie on your application so that you get a cheaper premium then you leave yourself open to having your policy voided.


So if you do your wheeze then have a claim or a write off then expect to have it rejected and to maybe lose the whole value of the car! (And if the claim is from a third party then expect your insurer to want you to reimburse them any payout they make to the third party)

Aretnap

The Financial Ombudsman's view (here) seems to be "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".

I suspect that key word is "inadvertently" though. If you think your car is worth £10,000 and the book value is actually £10,500 then you would not be penalised for putting down too low a figure - you're not an expert in car valuation after all. However if you put down a number which is obviously much too low in order to get a cheaper quote (like claiming that a 4 year old ST is only worth a grand" then they might decide that you were obviously taking the mickey - and that the insurer is justified in limiting your payout to £1000.