Parked car is now a write off

LegalCashier

Hi,

Whilst sitting at home and eating lunch earlier today we received a phone call saying our car had been involved in an accident, assuming it was a cold caller we went to hang up but was informed it was our car insurers and we told to inspect our car.

We went outside to see that our parked car had a note on the windscreen with someone’s number name and reg plate (no other details) and along with this a dent in the car and all the wheels facing in different directions!

We rang Admiral back and was informed that a car had reversed of their friend’s drive and gone straight into the side of our car. Insurers have told us it’s not economical to fix the car and have offered us the value.

They have offered £1,380 and a courtesy car for 7(?!) days. We paid £2,500 for the car December 2018 and three weeks ago paid out £600/700 for MOT, service and all 4 break pads and discs.

Someone came out from the corner shop and said they have the incident on CCTV and we can have a look tomorrow morning when the manager is back. The lady said there was an altercation either with the person who hit our car or another driver but a passerby made told them to stop and leave details.

Our concern is we now have to find a new car in 7 days, and try to scrape together another £1,500 for a reliable car. We both travel to work together and public transport is much more expensive than driving.

We are looking into legal action as our car was parked legally, has any one had any similar experiences? Should we contact the police? Also is a 7 day courtesy car fair? As all local dealers shut half an hour after finishing work and we have no paid holiday to spare.

Apologies if we sound naive, this is the first car we have ever had and we have never had any need to contact our insurance provider before.

Thank you,
L

BoGoF

What you paid to get it through the MOT adds virtually nothing to the value.

What is the full make/model and spec of the car? How does the offer compare with what is for sale.

What do you expect taking legal action/involving police to achieve. All you are entitled to is the market value of the car and your insurer has made an offer.

7 days courtesy car is prob as much as you will get.

ACG

7 days does not seem unreasonable in my opinion. I passed my test and had a car 3-4 days later. I had to travel from my home in south manchester to Blackburn (about 35 miles) to go and get it, but I found a car on ebay or autotrader. So you do not really need to go to forecourts.

You just find a car that fits the bill and go and see it. If it seems ok when ou view it in person, job done. If you tell the seller you are heading down, chances are they will be happy to hang around for an extra half hour. You should not need to do that more than once or twice in the next week and you also have next weekend.

strawb_shortcake

When my car was involved in an accident I was given a hire car until they'd paid me the money I was due, as it came through on a Friday afternoon they granted me the weekend too.
I suspect most insurers assume that people have an emergency fund to cover such eventualities

swingaloo

Snatch their hand of with the courtesy car. When my sons car was written off in similar circumstances he was promised a courtesy car on the first call and then told that he would not be getting one as the offer only applied whilst the insured car was being fixed and as it was being written off he was not entitled to one.

loskie

you can and should haggle the settlement offer. You could also claim direct off the third parties insurer that may give you a bit more as their costs will be lower.

It is sad but true you may end up out of pocket.

garth549

It's an unfortunate fact that insurance claims don't take into account any recent work you've had done on the vehicle. In my opinion you should be able to claim for a proportion of any recent work done on a vehicle (such as discs, pads, clutch etc), especially if you're an innocent third-party.

I'd be pretty annoyed if I shelled out say £600 for a new clutch and then someone wrote my car off the next day! A replacement car for the value they offer almost certainly won't have a new clutch fitted so you're not 'back in the position you were before the accident' which is what a claim is supposed to do.

Takmon

garth549 wrote: »

It's an unfortunate fact that insurance claims don't take into account any recent work you've had done on the vehicle. In my opinion you should be able to claim for a proportion of any recent work done on a vehicle (such as discs, pads, clutch etc), especially if you're an innocent third-party.

I'd be pretty annoyed if I shelled out say £600 for a new clutch and then someone wrote my car off the next day! A replacement car for the value they offer almost certainly won't have a new clutch fitted so you're not 'back in the position you were before the accident' which is what a claim is supposed to do.

Work done on a car maintains the value of the car and doesn't add value. If you have recently changed the clutch then there must have been a problem with it. So if you tried to sell the car with a slipping clutch then you would get less money and by fitting a new clutch it would restore the car to it's market value.

FutureGirl

It depends what coverage you have on your policy as to how long you get the courtesy car for, as there are different levels of courtesy car coverage.

Aretnap

garth549 wrote: »

It's an unfortunate fact that insurance claims don't take into account any recent work you've had done on the vehicle. In my opinion you should be able to claim for a proportion of any recent work done on a vehicle (such as discs, pads, clutch etc), especially if you're an innocent third-party.

I'd be pretty annoyed if I shelled out say £600 for a new clutch and then someone wrote my car off the next day! A replacement car for the value they offer almost certainly won't have a new clutch fitted so you're not 'back in the position you were before the accident' which is what a claim is supposed to do.

It might it it might not. Every car of a certain age is going to have had a fair amount of money spent on maintaining it over the years and will have some new or nearly new parts, so that is already assumed in the valuation. If you went out and bought a car that was getting on for 10 years old (I assume from the value that the OP's car is of that sort of age) there's nothing to say that it wouldn't have had a new clutch fitted, if not yesterday then perhaps in the last year or so (ie new enough to outlast the rest of the car anyway) so it's not obvious that you've actually lost out. And if it didn't have a new clutch it may be that it has a new catalytic converter, whereas unknown to you yours only had a few months left in it, so what you lose with one hand you can end up gaining with the other.

Or looked at another way, what is the typical difference in selling price between "8 year old car with new brake pads" and "8 year old car". That is the extra amount that the OP can claim, and I'll wager that it's small. The real difference the new brake pads make is that its value is not assessed as "8 year old car with knackered brake pads", or in car advert-speak "spares or repairs".