Third party fault accident- My car written off

lemons21

Thank you all for your replies. 
The saga continues and I remain more confused than ever. 

My insurer has sent me a valuation document which if I am reading it correctly doesn't leave me enough money to buy a replacement (or even half of one). 

They have valued the vehicle at just shy of 3.5k.
They value the salvage at £900 odd.
The doc says that my total net settlement figure is just over 2k once they minus my excess also.

They do not state whether they have deemed the vehicle CAT A, B, S or N.

In their valuation doc they have taken the salvage fee off the total value meaning my settlement figure is just over 2k. Zero chance of buying a replacement comparable vehicle with that money.

Comparable vehicles of same age and at least the same or higher mileage are for sale at 4k minimum (many examples are more). 

What is confusing me most is whether the salvage value is charged regardless of whether they retain the vehicle or not. 

The document states that it is not their policy to allow the vehicles to be bought back, yet in every conversation I have had with my insurer over the course of the week they stated that I would have the option to have them deduct the salvage fee, conduct the repairs myself and put a new MOT on the car before they would reinsure it.

Would a kind soul mind explaining this to me?

I naively thought that if they were to retain the vehicle, I would receive the full market value of my car minus my excess (so over 3k).

Do they really take the salvage value off even if you aren’t keeping the vehicle?

Thank you all. 

lemons21

To confuse matters more, having been told on Thurs by my insurer not to drive the vehicle and that they would cancel my policy. On Friday, I was told that my policy would not be cancelled while I still had possession of the vehicle, that I would not be given a courtesy car while I still had the vehicle and that I therefore should be driving the vehicle! 

Nobbie1967

I’d check whether you are committed to the accident management company. If not, why not approach the third party insurer direct and see what they’ll offer as a cash settlement. This is what I did when someone bumped my car. Just took the money and left the dent. It’s in their interest to avoid the involvement of the Accident Management company who will just bump up costs.

Sandtree

lemons21 said:

Thank you all for your replies. 
The saga continues and I remain more confused than ever. 

My insurer has sent me a valuation document which if I am reading it correctly doesn't leave me enough money to buy a replacement (or even half of one). 

They have valued the vehicle at just shy of 3.5k.
They value the salvage at £900 odd.
The doc says that my total net settlement figure is just over 2k once they minus my excess also.

They do not state whether they have deemed the vehicle CAT A, B, S or N.

In their valuation doc they have taken the salvage fee off the total value meaning my settlement figure is just over 2k. Zero chance of buying a replacement comparable vehicle with that money.

Comparable vehicles of same age and at least the same or higher mileage are for sale at 4k minimum (many examples are more). 

What is confusing me most is whether the salvage value is charged regardless of whether they retain the vehicle or not. 

The document states that it is not their policy to allow the vehicles to be bought back, yet in every conversation I have had with my insurer over the course of the week they stated that I would have the option to have them deduct the salvage fee, conduct the repairs myself and put a new MOT on the car before they would reinsure it.

Would a kind soul mind explaining this to me?

I naively thought that if they were to retain the vehicle, I would receive the full market value of my car minus my excess (so over 3k).

Do they really take the salvage value off even if you aren’t keeping the vehicle?

Thank you all. 

Salvage is only deducted if you are keeping the vehicle, if not then you get the £3.5k less excess and they sell the salvage to a salvage company for £900. 

If you are keeping the salvage then you shouldn't be thinking that you can buy a similar replacement vehicle with the remaining monies. Insurers can generally get more for salvage than the average person and so if you want to keep the salvage you should be thinking the settlement money is going to be used to repair the vehicle (to some degree again) with a view either for you to keep it or in the hope that you can sell it once repaired and the sale price plus remaining settlement is greater than £3.5k less excess that you'd otherwise have gotten. If you can or cannot do that depends on how cheaply you can get the car repaired and how well you know what to repair and what potentially not to. 

The fact they have said you can keep the vehicle means its and S or N as the other two can only go to appropriately licensed people. 

As to it not being their policy, doesn't mean you cannot but can mean they price it to make it unfavourable... over 25% for salvage is fairly steep in principle but I admit its been a long time since I last dealt with total loss vehicles to know what the floor is for a vehicle that ultimately can be returned to the road. 

Bigphil1474

Lemons, If I read this correctly - you can get the car fixed for £800 (estimate), and they'll be giving you £2k plus the car. In that case, you'll have roughly £1,200 left over. Don't see why they'd only give you £2k and not keep the car unless your excess is huge?

tightauldgit

lemons21 said:

To confuse matters more, having been told on Thurs by my insurer not to drive the vehicle and that they would cancel my policy. On Friday, I was told that my policy would not be cancelled while I still had possession of the vehicle, that I would not be given a courtesy car while I still had the vehicle and that I therefore should be driving the vehicle! 

I'm just going through this now and went through it last year also. 

With regards the vehicle did you accept the credit hire vehicle if so then you should get it either while your car is being repaired or if its a write-off for 7 days after you receive payment. 

If you haven't accepted the credit hire vehicle then you may well be entitled to a courtesy car from the garage doing any repairs but only while it's in being repaired. If it's written off then you aren't entitled to a courtesy car unless you have that additional cover from your insurer. 

Is the car driveable or not? If you are in doubt then you should tell the insurer you consider it undriveable - I have to admit to being slightly confused as to why the insurer didn't take your car away to have it assessed to determine if it's a write off or not. 

It seems like they have determined it as a write-off in any case and offered you £3500 as its value. That's what you will get (less any excess), you only have to worry about the salvage value if you want to keep the car. Then you would get £2600 (less excess) and the car. 

From my experience you will have a hard time getting them to budge on the value and they won't accept Autotrader listings as evidence of the cars value. They just go by the book value regardless of whether you can physically buy the same car for that price or not. 

tightauldgit

Also your excess should be recoverable from the 3rd party as an uninsured loss - if you have legal expenses cover then you should speak to them about how to recover any additional costs.

lemons21

Thanks all for the replies. 
I did manage to speak to my insurer yesterday and multiple times today. It has felt like going around in circles, but I think we are finally getting there. 

I have managed to get them to challenge the valuation of the vehicle. They have added a few hundred quid to the valuation after reviewing the valuation assessment with me. I had great difficulty using their portal and getting the pages to load, regardless of attempting with multiple devices. I must admit the process was quite confusing and software glitchy which was unhelpful. I was asked to supply images of all four sides of the vehicle  and the vehicle mileage but then was told that these were not used in the valuation of the vehicle. Perhaps they are used in the categorisation process. 

As you suspected @tightauldgit they were not at all interested in other vehicles of the same age and mileage advertised for sale as evidence of the value of the vehicle. It is not something they use in their valuation assessment apparently. They would not budge on that. 

I have learned today that they have deemed the vehicle a CAT N (non structural) and consequently (and given that I couldn't buy an equivalent vehicle with the valuation minus excess), I have decided to retain the salvage. I have a good body work garage who has quoted me a maximum of £800 for the work. I'll need to put a new MOT on it before reinsuring it. My insurer has assured me that my premiums will remain unchanged for the rest of the term.

The remaining issue to sort has been a courtesy vehicle in order to be able to get to work. I was told that I was entitled to a vehicle, then when chasing this up, was told that I was not, then finally they confirmed that because it is a non-fault claim, they will provide me with a vehicle. I've been getting by over the last few days by getting lifts to work in the meantime. 
Getting through to the relevant department has been all kinds of fun though. When I called today, I was told that wait times were excessively long and they would get a colleague in that department to call me back. 

We are due to go away next week and I am wondering whether I should just purchase temporary insurance cover for my partner's vehicle and drive that when I can to save the hassle. Obtaining a courtesy car thus far has been a bit like pulling teeth, without anaesthesia. 

Sandtree

First of all lets distinguish between a courtesy car, a hire car provided by your policy and a credit hire car.

A courtesy car is one provided by the garage doing the repairs and is subject to availability. Your car is a total loss and so wouldn't be entitled to a courtesy car.

A hire car provided by your policy is an optional extra offered by some insurers. Its good because it still provides a car when yours is a total loss or stolen/unrecovered etc but the down side is that its normally for a fixed maximum number of days and so if there are delays it may have to go back before your car is ready. It doesn't appear that the OP has taken this option when they bought the insurance (or their insurer dont sell it).

That leaves credit hire which is getting a car on tick with the credit hire company recovering their outlay from the third party/their insurers. This is not provided under your insurance and its purely at the discretion of the credit hire company to decide if your's is a case they want to take on... after all its their money lost if they provide the car and it turns out the third party is uninsured and cannot afford to pay or it was a cloned vehicle and so true perpetrator is unidentified for a recovery etc.


Seems the only option they're offering is a credit hire car but that's down to that company to decide if they want to or not. If they dont you can claim things like loss of 

Car_54

lemons21 said:

As you suspected @tightauldgit they were not at all interested in other vehicles of the same age and mileage advertised for sale as evidence of the value of the vehicle. It is not something they use in their valuation assessment apparently. They would not budge on that. 

That is standard for the industry, and endorsed by the ombudsman. An exception might be where the car is very rare.
The very good reason is that adverts in Autotrader etc. show asking prices, not selling prices. Very few people pay the asking price, and some of them are wildly .optimistic.