Car Written Off - Lousy Deal from LV

RedditchResident

On the 26th of August 2020 my VW EOS was written off.  The other guy's insurance company is LV.  They offered GBP1800 for my car.  Mine was high mileage but main dealer serviced always.  It had cam belt changes per the schedule etc.  It also had a push button roof.  There is one specialist dealership in the country offering anything like my car with a credible warranty.  Minimum GBP6000.  Not usually available from VW Used as too rare.  The guides put mine at around GBP2500.  LV pointed me towards a car in Exchange and Mart that "...matched..."  mine.  When I looked it was a damaged car with a dodgy roof.  I think that's where the guides get their valuations from.  The Ombudsman says 'not interested' because LV is not my insurer but the other guys.   No car and nowhere to go apparently.

neilmcl

Well you've discovered the only downside of claiming directly from the TP insurer, you don't have any backup from the FOS if you want to make a complaint. If you don't like their deal and they refuse to offer more then you can either take legal action or go back to your own insurer and claim through them.

There's at least 130 VW Eos currently for sale on Autotrader so not that rare.

RedditchResident

I had not considered a claim against my own insurer.  I'll call them.    

AdrianC

So claim from your insurer, not the other guy's...
But make sure you're arguing off a solid basis.

The Eos was a folding hard-top Golf, fairly unloved by the market as a whole, sold in the UK between 2006 and 2014. They aren't offered by VW dealers because the youngest are 7yo, and sales fell off a cliff the last few years - few are under 10yo.
They aren't that rare - HowManyLeft has about 17,000 taxed at the end of Q3 last year.

You don't say what age yours is, or anything except that it's "high mileage", so we'll have to make some assumptions.
There are 130 Eos on Autotrader. They fall roughly half-and-half in age at 2009. I presume by the offer that yours is older. Of the 68 pre-2009 cars, 56 are 100k miles or less.
Of those over 100k, not one is over £2k.

The 100k one is £2.5k, with a duff roof - that clearly won't sell in a hurry, the vendor is in dreamland.
So let's look at how quickly they're selling...
£1500, 120k, unsold since November - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202011286588296
£2000, 129k, unsold since July - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202007091047131
£1500, 131k, unsold since October - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202010315659924
£1700, 148k, unsold since October - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202101087766777

I presume the specialist you mention is https://www.vweos.co.uk/ - yes, their cheapest car in stock is £5k. But they only have three cars 80k or higher. They are asking for a premium price, way in excess of the rest of the market. It is not reasonable to expect an insurer to pay that, unless you can prove it was justified for your car. If your car was worth far in excess of the general market, then that's what agreed value policies are for.

The guides get their prices from a wide variety of motor trade sources, based on what's actually selling, not what's just being asked and sitting around forever. For anything vaguely mainstream, under about 15yo, they're broadly accurate.

KimJongUn88

You fail to mention the age, mileage and trim levels of your vehicle making it impossible for anyone to hazard a guess as to it’s value.

Also things such as servicing and cam belt do not add to the value. That is merely maintenance and general upkeep which is expected of any vehicle.

RedditchResident

AdrianC said:

So claim from your insurer, not the other guy's...
But make sure you're arguing off a solid basis.
...

The guides get their prices from a wide variety of motor trade sources, based on what's actually selling, not what's just being asked and sitting around forever. For anything vaguely mainstream, under about 15yo, they're broadly accurate.

Thanks Adrian, you put some time into that.  Appreciated.

This one is the only diesel in your selection and closest to mine.  £1500, 131k, unsold since October - https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202010315659924   Any warranty is by negotiation and the Ts&Cs are not readily available.  I don't particularly want to buy from a cheap and cheerful side of the road effort.  Warranty repairs by a roadside junkyard are of no interest.  Am I obliged to accept a petrol car?  I think the selection available is very limited.  If you have a good one you keep it.  That is part of the reason why they are not plentiful on Autotrader.   If you maintain them well they are excellent cars and I kept mine fully maintained by VW.  My wife has a new Tiguan and, other than the automatic transmission of the Tiguan, the feel of the EOS was the same.  No rattles etc.  To get something trustworthy and backed by a credible warranty it really is vweos.com.  

I am largely resigned to simply not replacing the car at all.  At least for now.  And accepting the insult added to injury.  I don't want to make up the shortfall from savings right now.    Its a rum deal when you can go from happily driving along minding your own business to being stranded at the side of the road for five hours before going home on a low loader and being left without transport.   I never saw the car or contents again.  I viewed one car from Autotrader and it took almost a day of travel, with costs.  The money from LV has to pay for travel and time spent viewing possible replacements and I cannot afford to trek around the country to the roadside outlets appearing in Autotrader.   I feel I have been well and truly turned over by LV.

AdrianC

I think you misunderstand what the insurance payout is for. It's not to allow you to replace yours with an absolute cherry-picked example... it's to cover your loss.
What was your car actually worth, the minute before it got hit?
That's what they owe you. Not a penny more.

Your preferences as to who you buy from are absolutely your prerogative - but that doesn't mean that your preference to buy from a premium-priced specialist means your car was worth that premium price.

So let's just look at diesels - which will not be at any kind of premium, since a petrol would be London ULEZ exempt, while a diesel won't, and the diesels fall under "dieselgate"...
How about £2,350 for 77k? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202101238295807
£2k for 112k, unsold since December? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202012187216606

RedditchResident

AdrianC said:

I think you misunderstand what the insurance payout is for. It's not to allow you to replace yours with an absolute cherry-picked example... it's to cover your loss.
What was your car actually worth, the minute before it got hit?
That's what they owe you. Not a penny more.

Your preferences as to who you buy from are absolutely your prerogative - but that doesn't mean that your preference to buy from a premium-priced specialist means your car was worth that premium price.

So let's just look at diesels - which will not be at any kind of premium, since a petrol would be London ULEZ exempt, while a diesel won't, and the diesels fall under "dieselgate"...
How about £2,350 for 77k? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202101238295807
£2k for 112k, unsold since December? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202012187216606

I think I understand rather well what the payout is for.  It doesn't come within an !!!!!!'s roar of covering my loss.   I 'lost' a diesel.  I want a diesel replacement.  One without modifications.  Pure and simple.    I have no interest in ULEZ (whatever that is).  Ignoring for now the morality, if not legality, behind leaving me out of pocket on hundreds of pounds spent sourcing a replacement.    The car you mention is for sale with Euro Automotive Ltd, Leicester.  A company dissolved in 2016 and not showing up on a search engine.    
There was a movement in Parliament to change the law so that it might be fairer.  Compensation based on cost of replacement rather than trade prices on Glasses Guides.  That died a death.  Presumably the result of lobbying by LV and other shabby insurers.

RedditchResident

AdrianC said:

I think you misunderstand what the insurance payout is for. It's not to allow you to replace yours with an absolute cherry-picked example... it's to cover your loss.
What was your car actually worth, the minute before it got hit?
That's what they owe you. Not a penny more.  

My loss is significantly greater than the value of the car, for which a straight replacement seems not to be available other than from VWEOS.com.  The second car you mention above cannot be bought for the money from LV and doesn't even have a service history let alone any guarantee.  Its anybody's guess whether it has had the cambelt replaced per the manufacturer service schedule.  That alone is GBP550 at VW and if not attended to can total an engine within seconds.  According to you it seems I am obliged to buy any pig in a poke that can be found in a junkyard and if it stops permanently at the first junction it comes to then it still qualifies as a suitable replacement for my fully VW maintained EOS.  Bewildering I have to say.   

As long as people support insurance companies who swindle motorists like me they will get away with it.  Thanks.

AdrianC

RedditchResident said:

AdrianC said:

I think you misunderstand what the insurance payout is for. It's not to allow you to replace yours with an absolute cherry-picked example... it's to cover your loss.
What was your car actually worth, the minute before it got hit?
That's what they owe you. Not a penny more.

I think I understand rather well what the payout is for.  It doesn't come within an !!!!!!'s roar of covering my loss.

So what was your car worth immediately before the collision? Because that IS your loss.
Give us the age and mileage, let's see what we can find that's similar.

I 'lost' a diesel.  I want a diesel replacement.  One without modifications.  Pure and simple.

What you want is irrelevant.

I have no interest in ULEZ (whatever that is).

It affects the value. Everything that affects the value of the car that was written off is relevant. Nothing else is.

Ignoring for now the morality, if not legality, behind leaving me out of pocket on hundreds of pounds spent sourcing a replacement.

They shouldn't leave you out of pocket on the value of your car, immediately before the collision.
Whether you choose to replace it like-for-like or not, and whether you choose to pay a premium to do so, is not their problem.

The car you mention is for sale with Euro Automotive Ltd, Leicester.  A company dissolved in 2016 and not showing up on a search engine.

Whether they are or not is beside the point.
You do not have to buy it.
It is simply an illustration of market value.
It is not any insurer's responsibility to locate a replacement car for you, merely to recompense you for the value of it.

On the face of it, £1,800 for your car is not unreasonable. Evidence shows that there are cars with not much over half the mileage of yours, for less than you insist yours was worth - and they aren't even selling fast, which suggests the actual value is lower than the advertised price.

You also have the problem that your car is long gone because you've dragged this out for six months over a difference of £700 - and haven't even taken the single most obvious next step, claiming from your own insurer.
You simply cannot point to the remains of your car in a salvage yard and say "THIS is why mine was more valuable".
You are going to have to produce some kind of documentary evidence that yours was somehow more valuable than the basic information - age, spec, mileage - suggest.

Like I said earlier - if you think your car was worth far more than the guides would suggest, then that's what agreed value policies are for. Get the value sorted in advance, when you can point to the car and explain the valuation.

There was a movement in Parliament to change the law so that it might be fairer.  Compensation based on cost of replacement rather than trade prices on Glasses Guides.  That died a death.  Presumably the result of lobbying by LV and other shabby insurers.

When?
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06061/SN06061.pdf
Here's a 2017 Parliamentary briefing doc on the workings of the car insurance market. The basis for calculation of car values simply isn't even mentioned within it. It was not on their radar.

Anyway, how do you determine the value of the written-off vehicle except by the use of price guides? After all, there may not be a direct replacement car available.
If you want to be utterly pernickety about trivial detail - even things such as colour - there may simply not be an identical replacement in existence. I've owned cars where mine has been one of literally a single-digit number of that model on the road in the country. I once dealt with an insurer over valuing a write-off for a car of which only five were originally built, the thick end of two decades earlier.

B'sides, it's nothing to do with "law". It's everything to do with your contract of insurance.
You have no contract with LV.
You do with your insurer. If you don't like what LV are offering, claim from your insurer.
Your contract with them specifies market value, not finding a replacement.
If you don't like what your insurer offer, then go to the ombudsman.
If the insurer's offer is genuinely low, then the ombudsman will put you back in the position you should have been in.

But don't waste everybody's time by insisting your car is worth 50% more than the reality. You will not achieve anything.

RedditchResident

I 'want' like for like but according to you that is irrelevant as its not about what I want. Really?  ULEZ has no bearing on the value of my car any more than 3 litre model EOSs do.  I am only interested in replacing the car written off with the same car.  As things stand I am at the loss of the car and all costs incurred as a consequence of the collision.  The 'compensation' doesn't come close.

"They shouldn't leave you out of pocket on the value of your car...".  However that is exactly what they are doing.  Replacements are available, but not for that money.  So its a swindle.  

You seem to want to dig up junk from dodgy sources as suitable replacements and then tell me I am stuck with whatever is to be found. You prefer to ignore the fact that they are not like for like and peddle your line that I am being unreasonable.  It seems to be completely lost on you that convertibles don't sell in bad weather so yes, they hang around for a while.  

"Anyway, how do you determine the value of the written-off vehicle except by the use of price guides? After all, there may not be a direct replacement car available".  That's not the view of the Ombudsman.   Unfortunately they cannot help me because I am not a customer of LV, just a victim.

You say I   "... dragged this on for six months".  Waow!  First of all I don't have the money to replace the car and secondly the Ombudsman has taken until yesterday to tell me they will not address the issue.

Per the post above, it has only come to my attention today that I should claim against my own insurer.  LV advised me to leave my insurer out of it to avoid impairment to my claims history.  

It is very clear that you are not an impartial commentator here.  Insurance companies get away with this stuff because of people like you and because they have unlimited resources where as I am a private individual of ordinary means.  Unethical, immoral and barely legal.  That's LV.