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Car
This is the first time I was involved in an car accident, happened 2 days back and the other party has accepted full liability.
My car by the look of it is probably going to be written off since it has heavy damage.
I got my car 4years back for £7K. Very well maintained since then and spent over £750 for new tyres last month.
All brakes changed sometime early last year. It has good interior - leather seats & bose stereo system. All in all a great car.
Current Market value though as per Autotrader for this car is approx 3 to 3.5K.
Now to buy a similar car on Autotrader will cost me approx 6.5K close by. I can see there are similar cars priced for 5.3K but they are like 120 miles away from me.
Here are some concerns that are bothering me, hoping for some input/knowledge from you all.
- What I feel is unfair is me covering the difference in cost for the replacement car. Will insurance companies cover that difference ( 6K - 3K) ? Is that something they will negotiate ? Am I within my right to ask them to get me a car exactly similar to my old car instead of the cash ?
- Could I somehow claim the cost of these new tyres? Or offset them somehow ? They barely had 350 miles on them
- Could I somehow claim the cost of these new tyres? Or offset them somehow ? They barely had 350 miles on them
- My insurer passed me to a third party Auxillis to arrange for rental car. Their paperwork/phone call was really long and hence seems complicated. Any once have experience using with Auxillis ? Just seems like they will pay up everything upfront and then markup the cost and get it back from the other party's insurance ?
- The other party insurance called me and said they will offer me a rental and all other expenses. I initially felt that would it be better to talk my insurer since I thought they would represent me better. Is there any harm in talking to the other party's insurer directly and getting this sorted quickly? Any possible complications which i don't forsee?
- We have some personal injury too, my insurer connected me to some law firm who say they can get me money back for injury/loss of pay/damage but will take a 25% cut. I am not sure what to expect. If I talk to the other party's insurer, how would I approach this topic?
Anyone who had had a similar experience, any thoughts/advice on how to move forward?
Anyone who had had a similar experience, any thoughts/advice on how to move forward?
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So the similar car is not the same as what you had? If you plug in exactly your make, model, year then you get £3.5k? If so then that's all you're likely to get from the insurance. If however you plug in the details and get a close match (year older?) for more money then let them know about that. (that happened with a car I had - I emailed them a screen shot of the car listing from autotrader)
Don't forget too that the car that is being written off is still your car. So you can take the £3.5k or whatever and then also sell for scrap the old car. If the tires are that new they alone might get you £300+. A reputable second hand dealer will take an unworking vehicle and give you a decent price if they know you want to buy something from them and that there's lots of bits they can salvage from the wrecked trade in. We had a Lexus that had pretty severe water damage that rendered it completely unusable as the battery was completely ruined. Repair costs would have been astronomical but we got a excellent offer from a place we'd been to to look at a possible replacement.
2023 £1 a day £54.26/365
Who is the Third part insurer ? If they a low quality insurance company like Direct Line they will offer nothing and not negotiate, be prepared to use an accident management company as it may be less painful if they don't make the right noises early on.
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insurance/motor-insurance/vehicle-valuations-write-offs
Broadly, the trade guides will generally be taken as the best evidence for the value of the vehicle as they are based on actual selling prices. As opposed to advertised prices. The fact that someone advertises a car for £6000 doesn't mean that it will sell for £6000 - the seller might accept a lower offer, or it might sit attracting no interest until he readvertises it at a lower price (at which point it is quickly snapped up meaning that the majority of cars advertised on Auto Trader on a given day are likely overpriced).
You can't insist on the insurer providing you with an exact replacement - an exact replacement might not even exist for rarer models and combinations of options. You can only insist on a fair price for which a car of that model, age, mileage, condition etc would have sold immediately before the accident.
Unfortunately you won't get much, if any, credit for maintenance work you've done on the car. Any car of a certain age will have had a fair amount spent on maintaining it over the years and will have some new or nearly new parts - so that is already assumed in the valuation. Certainly it's frustrating to have a car written off just after you've spent a load of money on new tyres, but if you were to go out and buy another car of the same age there's nothing to say it wouldn't have new tyres too, so it's not obvious that you've actually lost out. And if it didn't have new tyres it might be that it had a new clutch, whereas unknown to you your clutch only had a few hundred miles left in it, so what you lose with one hand you can end up gaining with the other.
That's not been my daughter's experience with Direct Line (the liable 3rd party insurer) so far after a recent non fault accident - they've collected her car, arranged an foc hire (not credit hire) and offered £250 at the end of the process, plus she wont have to pay her excess