Car written off

Justamum

Last week someone reversed into my car and damaged it.  He admitted full responsibility.  His insurers have written the car off as it's going to cost a few thousand to fix.  I've been told that I'll be given the book value of the car - I don't know what that is yet, but I'll be lucky to see £1500 - which means that I'll have to find a few thousand quid to replace it.  It seems extremely unfair that I'm the one out of pocket. 

Surely I should be put back into the position I was previously, ie with a fully working car.  The book value is irrelevant to me because I wasn't going to sell it. 

MX5huggy

You need to arm yourself with what it will cost you to replace the car like for like. You are entering a negotiation with them. Don’t accept their first offer. Find the 5 closest matches for make model specification age and mileage on Autotrader. Used car values are really firm ATM. 

daveyjp

Just because insurance say 'a few thousand', doesn't mean that is what the repair could actually cost if a 'make do and mend' job will do rather than 'replace everything with brand new' approach the insurance adopt.

When a neighbour reversed into my wife's car and caused a minor scrape the insurance quoted for a full bumper, respray, reg plate, badges!  With a courtesy car it was almost £3,000.

Local bodyshop resprayed the panel for £250.  16 years on I still see the car and it looks just fine.

Justamum

I thought at first it was purely cosmetic, but he's actually destroyed the steering - it was very dangerous to drive.  He reversed out of a parking bay right into my front offside wheel.  He couldn't see out of his rear window because it was blocked by a whole load of boxes and other stuff.

pinkshoes

Justamum said:

I thought at first it was purely cosmetic, but he's actually destroyed the steering - it was very dangerous to drive.  He reversed out of a parking bay right into my front offside wheel.  He couldn't see out of his rear window because it was blocked by a whole load of boxes and other stuff.

In which case get onto autotrader and try and find cars of the same spec, age and mileage and screenshot them as evidence of the value of your car. Ideally from a dealer so you have some guarantee on quality.

Make sure you also take distance into consideration, as travelling 250 miles to see a car will add up, not to mention if you have any issues and having to return it.

Aretnap

The "book value" is the cost of replacing the car with one of the same make, model, age, mileage etc, generally as measured by trade guides which record selling prices of used cars. 

There's an urban myth that "book value" means trade in price or the price the car would fetch at auction. In fact the trade guides record several values - the selling price at a dealership, the selling price in a private sale, the trade in price etc etc. Insurers should be using the dealer price. 

OTOH the guides are based on actual selling prices which may or may not correspond to the asking price of a particular car you find advertised on Auto Trader. So the Financial Ombudsman generally regards the trade guides as more reliable than adverts for similar cars.

That said the discrepancy should not be "thousands" of pounds on a £1500 car. Unless you mean that you'd want to take the opportunity to replace it with something newer and shinier rather than buying something of the same age. In which case the other driver and his insurer are only responsible for the value of the car you've actually lost, not the one you'd like to replace it with. 

BOWFER

pinkshoes said:

Justamum said:

I thought at first it was purely cosmetic, but he's actually destroyed the steering - it was very dangerous to drive.  He reversed out of a parking bay right into my front offside wheel.  He couldn't see out of his rear window because it was blocked by a whole load of boxes and other stuff.

Make sure you also take distance into consideration, as travelling 250 miles to see a car will add up, not to mention if you have any issues and having to return it.

Not sure as to the relevance of this, as it suggests the OP should be looking at recouping potential travelling costs?
I wouldn't have thought the insurance company covers 'incidental costs' like this, especially when you've no clue what they will be at the time of claim?

Grumpy_chap

BOWFER said:

pinkshoes said:

Justamum said:

I thought at first it was purely cosmetic, but he's actually destroyed the steering - it was very dangerous to drive.  He reversed out of a parking bay right into my front offside wheel.  He couldn't see out of his rear window because it was blocked by a whole load of boxes and other stuff.

Make sure you also take distance into consideration, as travelling 250 miles to see a car will add up, not to mention if you have any issues and having to return it.

Not sure as to the relevance of this, as it suggests the OP should be looking at recouping potential travelling costs?
I wouldn't have thought the insurance company covers 'incidental costs' like this, especially when you've no clue what they will be at the time of claim?

I read @pinkshoes comment differently. 

I read it as suggesting the OP needs to find a replacement vehicle within sensible radius as the (unrecoverable) costs of travelling to see cars far away would soon add up, not to mention issues that could arise further down the line for a car purchased from far away.  So, the OP is reasonable if they select similar cars from within a "local" radius and can contest if the insurer finds cheaper similar cars that are far away that the "local" rate applies.

[Deleted User]

Justamum said:

Last week someone reversed into my car and damaged it.  He admitted full responsibility.  His insurers have written the car off as it's going to cost a few thousand to fix.  I've been told that I'll be given the book value of the car - I don't know what that is yet, but I'll be lucky to see £1500 - which means that I'll have to find a few thousand quid to replace it.  It seems extremely unfair that I'm the one out of pocket. 

Surely I should be put back into the position I was previously, ie with a fully working car.  The book value is irrelevant to me because I wasn't going to sell it. 

Sadly this is how insurance is in the UK. Your car gets written off and you are left desperately looking for another one. The law only requires them to give you the pre-accident value of the vehicle.

When making your case forget about private sales. You have no warranty or come-back on those. Look at dealer prices with a warranty period. Look at reputable dealers, not dodgy used car lots.

In the end you will probably have to pay out more than you get, but you can then make the argument that the true cost to you was more than they gave you. You need to have made a reasonable effort to minimise your costs, e.g. try to haggle a bit and get a similar spec vehicle (not a better one). Unfortunately if there are no similar spec vehicles available it's your problem, you can either wait or get something else.

I can't really see a solution to this. Insurance companies obviously don't want to have to pay a lot more than the car is really worth. They can't source vehicles for people, people would just moan that the spec isn't the same and the insurance company would get into warranty issues. I'm surprised that no companies offer some kind of "new for old" or "value +20%" option when selling insurance.

Justamum

rigolith said:Insurance companies obviously don't want to have to pay a lot more than the car is really worth. They can't source vehicles for people, people would just moan that the spec isn't the same and the insurance company would get into warranty issues. I'm surprised that no companies offer some kind of "new for old" or "value +20%" option when selling insurance.

I've come to the conclusion that car insurance companies exist to make money for car insurance companies.  It's a scam which we're legally obliged to sign up to.

BOWFER

[Deleted User] said:

 They can't source vehicles for people, people would just moan that the spec isn't the same and the insurance company would get into warranty issues. 

There are (or were) insurance companies that did  exactly this, one (I forget who) even used to use this as a thing in their TV advert.
If your car is written off, they will source you the same.