Car Insurance Pay Out - who decides value? 27 September 2022 at 1:30PM in Insurance & life assurance 24 replies 483 views

GiantCranes

Hello,
Have looked all over the forums and internet but can't seem to find an answer. Basically my insurer put me through to a claims management company, who, in turn, put me through to a garage/assessors. T'was for a no fault claim and the other party admitted liability. 

The garage/assessors have decided its a 'total loss'. I'm awaiting a settlement figure from the assessors.

Who do I dispute the amount to if its too low to buy a like-for-like? My actual insurance or the assessors? I've just read that they pay 'market value' but i've no idea what it is for my car. In fact my car is more to buy from dealers then I actually paid for it (second hand cars seem to have gone up in price!) . I've seen horror stories of terrible pay outs so that you can't buy a similar car.

I can't access 'Glass's' valuation as it appears you have to be a dealer and this seems to be the comprehensive go-to valuation guide?- so i've no idea if what they are going to offer is fair and who in the first instance to go about refuting an unfair valuation?

Any experience or advice much appreciated.

Morph4610

Hi GC, the key to this if you're concerned you'll be low balled is to do your homework early. Autotrader should give you a really good idea about how much it would  cost to realistically replace your vehicle (though the insurers will take into account the condition of your car at the time of the incident).  

alleycat`

Find vehicles of similar age, spec and standard (and be honest about the wear and tear) as what you had.

Autotrader, motors.co.uk or other specialist dealers should give you a rough idea of the cost to replace / put you back where you were.

DullGreyGuy

It depends what you mean by a "claims management company"...

There are two forms of company that can be describes as such, one inside the industry would be called a TPA and they handle the claim under the terms of your insurance. In most of these cases the TPA will have delegated authority to settle claim on behalf of your insurers (there are tax implications if they dont). Sometimes there are caps on the authority but they are typically £25,000 or above (some can be £2m or more) so most claims fall within them. 

The second sort of company is one your insurer would have sold your details to and they wont be acting under the terms of your policy but assisting in your claiming from the third party insurer. They will deal with the repairs and add 10%, put you in a credit hire car at about 300% the going rate and attempt to reclaim this from the TPI. In this case its ultimately the third party insurer that decides on the vehicles value. The credit hire company will send an engineers report with an estimated value (plus a £75-£100 fee for the report) but ultimately the third party insurer values it themselves.

If this is going via your policy then have a look at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/insurance/motor-insurance/vehicle-valuations-write-offs which is the ombudsman advising how it will view complaints about vehicle valuations. If you are claiming from the third party insurer with the assistance of the claims company then you have no ombudsman rights and challenging valuations etc are therefore more complex especially if the claims company's engineer argees with the TPI

MadEddieffs

A word of caution/horror. I have just come off the phone to the ombudsman and have news.

I was hit by a driver who admitted fault and so ALL of my claim was handled by their insurance company. Unfortunately  my car was written off. I was offered a very low initial offer by the company which I rejected. I was then offered a higher offer which again I rejected. They made no further offers and just pushed the money in to my bank account and took back the courtesy car. I raised a complaint to them which (surprise surprise) was rejected as the valuation was apparently "fair". They do not consider Auto-Trader to be a valid source of car value. They also say that as garages/people "mark up" the price of the vehicle for profit, they wont consider any source other than catalogues like Parkers (and others I forget which). I argued that the price in Auto-Trader was the price I would be paying - irrespective of any hidden mark up. They didn't care. I went to the Ombudsman with their valuation and pages and pages of AutoTrader matching vehicles which were £600 more than I was offered. I was told today that they could not take my case because I am not a customer of the insurance company I have a dispute with. They also do not consider AutoTrader as a source of vehicle cost and (oddly) quoted lines VERY SIMILAR to that of the insurance company (impartial? ) about how there are markups in AutoTrader so it is not a pure vehicle value. The crux of it though was that the insurance was taken out for the third party, by the third party. All in all - I have nowhere to turn except the small claims court against the individual for monetary loss. I could claim on my own insurance - but obviously the price difference would be lost in my excess and future insurance price increases.

Be Warned - it seems in these situations you aren't going to get much help.

rigolith

You needed to go via your own insurance company to use the FSO.

Auto Trader prices are only what mugs pay. Everyone else negotiates, and because that's expected they build in some haggling room.

Why not contact some of those sellers and offer them what you got?

MadEddieffs

I realise that now but the settlement figure would mean asking dealers/private sellers knock off about £600 or 20% of the asking price. I very much doubt that will happen. Suppose the settlement paid to me was even less. Then what would I do?

DullGreyGuy

MadEddieffs said:
They also do not consider AutoTrader as a source of vehicle cost and (oddly) quoted lines VERY SIMILAR to that of the insurance company (impartial? ) about how there are markups in AutoTrader so it is not a pure vehicle value. The crux of it though was that the insurance was taken out for the third party, by the third party. All in all - I have nowhere to turn except the small claims court against the individual for monetary loss. I could claim on my own insurance - but obviously the price difference would be lost in my excess and future insurance price increases.

Be Warned - it seems in these situations you aren't going to get much help.

Whats odd about that?

Vehicles are valued using guides like CAP, Glass, Parkers etc (depending on the age of the vehicle). These are independent guides produced for the whole vehicle and vehicle FS industry based on real sales and these days online and updated daily. Insurance companies are relatively modest users of the guides and whilst you could argue that they'd prefer a low figure other users would want a high one.

The FOS public publish what they deem to be a fair approach to things, its therefore not odd that many insurers broadly align their processes to the FOS. With both the TPI and the FOS following the same process, using the same guides its not surprising that the figures are very similar.

The TPI represents their client and so were you to issue against the  third party as you suggest then it would be the insurer that will be sat on the other side of the table from you. They will obviously use the evidence from their engineer to substantiate that their offer was fair. Also remember you do not issue in "the small claims court" but you simply issue in the civil court and the court themselves decide if it goes to Small, Fast or Multi track. Doesnt sound likely it will go anywhere other than small but have seen a few surprise Fast track in my days which then means legal fees start getting added to the loser's bill. Similarly they can always play the lawyer game before hand by making Part 36 Offers etc 

The one key disadvantage, as you've found out, of going direct is the loss of FOS protection. A claim against your own insurance would have given this but it seems the FOS complaint would have failed anyway. Your excess would have been recoverable from the TPI and the difference of a non-fault claim -v- a non-fault incident is very small

MuckChucker

MadEddieffs said:

A word of caution/horror. I have just come off the phone to the ombudsman and have news.

I was hit by a driver who admitted fault and so ALL of my claim was handled by their insurance company. Unfortunately  my car was written off. I was offered a very low initial offer by the company which I rejected. I was then offered a higher offer which again I rejected. They made no further offers and just pushed the money in to my bank account and took back the courtesy car. I raised a complaint to them which (surprise surprise) was rejected as the valuation was apparently "fair". They do not consider Auto-Trader to be a valid source of car value. They also say that as garages/people "mark up" the price of the vehicle for profit, they wont consider any source other than catalogues like Parkers (and others I forget which). I argued that the price in Auto-Trader was the price I would be paying - irrespective of any hidden mark up. They didn't care. I went to the Ombudsman with their valuation and pages and pages of AutoTrader matching vehicles which were £600 more than I was offered. I was told today that they could not take my case because I am not a customer of the insurance company I have a dispute with. They also do not consider AutoTrader as a source of vehicle cost and (oddly) quoted lines VERY SIMILAR to that of the insurance company (impartial? ) about how there are markups in AutoTrader so it is not a pure vehicle value. The crux of it though was that the insurance was taken out for the third party, by the third party. All in all - I have nowhere to turn except the small claims court against the individual for monetary loss. I could claim on my own insurance - but obviously the price difference would be lost in my excess and future insurance price increases.

Be Warned - it seems in these situations you aren't going to get much help.

Yup, had this with the wife only a few weeks ago, I'm sure I posted here. She had it all agreed with the crashers insurance company before I was brought up to speed. We had to reject a few settlement offers, nowhere near what we needed - it also didn't help that petrol models like our damaged one are like hens teeth. Anyway, I had to fight them to get the top end of the bracket valuation (actually a bit higher than what Parkers said it was worth) and in the end had to go a year older with the  replacement - albeit 20k less miles.....but a diesel tractor engine. Nothing but strife and none of it our fault.

I did make sure to claim for the child car seats to ring e ery penny out of the pr!cks

Smithcom

MadEddieffs said:

A word of caution/horror. I have just come off the phone to the ombudsman and have news.

I was hit by a driver who admitted fault and so ALL of my claim was handled by their insurance company. Unfortunately  my car was written off. I was offered a very low initial offer by the company which I rejected. I was then offered a higher offer which again I rejected. They made no further offers and just pushed the money in to my bank account and took back the courtesy car. I raised a complaint to them which (surprise surprise) was rejected as the valuation was apparently "fair". They do not consider Auto-Trader to be a valid source of car value. They also say that as garages/people "mark up" the price of the vehicle for profit, they wont consider any source other than catalogues like Parkers (and others I forget which). I argued that the price in Auto-Trader was the price I would be paying - irrespective of any hidden mark up. They didn't care. I went to the Ombudsman with their valuation and pages and pages of AutoTrader matching vehicles which were £600 more than I was offered. I was told today that they could not take my case because I am not a customer of the insurance company I have a dispute with. They also do not consider AutoTrader as a source of vehicle cost and (oddly) quoted lines VERY SIMILAR to that of the insurance company (impartial? ) about how there are markups in AutoTrader so it is not a pure vehicle value. The crux of it though was that the insurance was taken out for the third party, by the third party. All in all - I have nowhere to turn except the small claims court against the individual for monetary loss. I could claim on my own insurance - but obviously the price difference would be lost in my excess and future insurance price increases.

Be Warned - it seems in these situations you aren't going to get much help.

Always a risk pushing claims directly via Third Party insurers, as no access to FOS complaints redress.

If you are confident of your case, you could consider litigation, but you will need to take balanced and expert advice regarding this.

SC

TELLIT01

In my opinion, insurers should be responsible for sourcing a vehicle matching the original as closely as possible.  After all they are the ones with the buying power.  Unfortunately I don't see that happening as it's too much trouble for them as they continually get away with low-balling.