Car insurance claim (nightmare)

Dempseyh

I recently made a total loss claim and would like some advice, they have taken 20% off the payout because my named driver had 3 points (I didn't know about my own fault for not checking when my policy renewed)
I've done two new quotes one mirroring my previous policy and the same policy with these 3 points added the price difference is less than 5% (4.3% to be exact) 
 I've told my insurance this and they simply said insurance prices fluctuate day to day so it will have been 20% when i took my policy out.
My total loss vehicle was valued at £6600, the lowest price one on auto trader same spec etc nationally is £8000 a (that was a cat D) we buy any car valued it at £7500, I disagreed with the engineers price and he just said he goes off three guides and picks the middle figure, he escalated this for me and within 20 mins I had an email from a customer relations manager saying the engineer has made a fair offer and it will be the final offer and that is the end of the complaints procedure.

Would you say this is fair? I have no clue how the procedure works as I've never claimed on any sort of insurance in the 30 odd years iv been paying for it.

rs65

Dempseyh said:

 and that is the end of the complaints procedure.

Did they give you details of the financial ombudsman?
Refer it to them.

Car_54

The Ombudsman points out that adverts are not a reliable guide, as they are asking prices, which no-one pays and in any case are frequently over-optimistic. That's why their guidance is to use the industry guides.

Dempseyh

Car_54 said:

The Ombudsman points out that adverts are not a reliable guide, as they are asking prices, which no-one pays and in any case are frequently over-optimistic. That's why their guidance is to use the industry guides.

That's why I did a webuyanycar valuation and selected lowest price first on Autotrader out of hundreds of cars available. 

Dempseyh

rs65 said:

Dempseyh said:

 and that is the end of the complaints procedure.

Did they give you details of the financial ombudsman?
Refer it to them.

Yes the bottom of the email had some details about this.

Thanks 

EdGasketTheSecond

Car_54 said:

The Ombudsman points out that adverts are not a reliable guide, as they are asking prices, which no-one pays and in any case are frequently over-optimistic. That's why their guidance is to use the industry guides.

I've paid quoted price for some of my cars; am I doing something wrong?

facade

Car_54 said:

The Ombudsman points out that adverts are not a reliable guide, as they are asking prices, which no-one pays and in any case are frequently over-optimistic. That's why their guidance is to use the industry guides.

We are continually told that traders price match each others adverts all the time, to offer the keenest prices as they won't even see the punter unless their car is the cheapest for miles, so then they won't come down on the price, and in fact they try and bump it up with surcharges (e.g charging £50 for the HPI check that costs them £3 when it is their problem if they sell a car with outstanding finance.)

Car_54

facade said:

Car_54 said:

The Ombudsman points out that adverts are not a reliable guide, as they are asking prices, which no-one pays and in any case are frequently over-optimistic. That's why their guidance is to use the industry guides.

We are continually told that traders price match each others adverts all the time, to offer the keenest prices as they won't even see the punter unless their car is the cheapest for miles, so then they won't come down on the price, and in fact they try and bump it up with surcharges (e.g charging £50 for the HPI check that costs them £3 when it is their problem if they sell a car with outstanding finance.)

OK, maybe you should tell the Ombudsman they've got it wrong.

Dempseyh

Thanks everyone

olgadapolga

A long time ago we had a car that was written off (having been initially told that it would be repaired) and we were given, with no option to challenge the figure, a paltry sum which was not anywhere near enough to replace the car. 

We went through the insurance company's complaints procedure and were told that the figure was final. We referred it to the Ombudsman, with evidence (mainly adverts, plus Glass's Guide, etc., figures). The Ombudsman found in our favour so we ended up with enough money to replace the car. We only had to write one letter to the Ombudsman so it was worth doing.

Manxman_in_exile

In the last 20 years we've had two cars written off.  In both cases we carried out a lot of research as to what any payout would be likely to be so that we'd have some idea whether to challenge it or not.  In both case we were offered settlement amounts that fell within our upper and lower amounts and that we were happy to accept.  (I think we may have squeezed an extra couple of hundred out of one of them).

I should say that in neither case was the insurance the cheapest we could have bought - I do sometimes wonder if the old saying, "you get what you pay for", is particularly true of car insurance.