Stolen car found then written off BEFORE being valued. How does that work?

lazydave

Hi all

Someone came into my house (probably not locked) and took my keys.  They then stole my car.  It was found by me the next day so max 12 hours later from being taken. 

I could see a bit of damage (small dent, ripped seat) but nothing major.  The police took it to be dusted for prints as gear was stolen from the car, then it was picked up by my insurers (Hasitings Direct) from them.

I got a message from my insurers saying my car had been written off and that an engineer would report on it before they valued it and looked to settle the claim.

I don't understand how they can write off the car BEFORE it's been valued?  

The car is quite old, but has done betty low miles.  It's a Jeep Grand Cherokee 2007 on about 65K miles.  On Autotrader that age and mileage are advertised at the £5,000 mark so I am surprised they have done this.

My ideal outcome would be to just get the car back now I think

Can anyone advise?

Thanks

DullGreyGuy

If you want the car back then advise them that if its a total loss that you wish to buy/retain the salvage. The total loss payment will be reduced to reflect what their salvage merchant would have paid them. 

You want selling price not advertised price... there are various free tools online but most require the registration plate. Using a random online vehicle (advertised at £5,000) one such tool suggests £3,000 is a more realistic value... no idea how closely it matches yours in terms of varient etc. 

A car is written off typically when the estimated repairs are more than 60% of the value of the vehicle, for older cars they may allow a little more. So based on £3,000 valuation if repairs are £1,500 or more its fairly likey to be a write off and given insurers use brand new parts and you've mentioned at least two areas of damage its probably not too surprising that they believe its a total loss even before inspection. 

dunstonh

I don't understand how they can write off the car BEFORE it's been valued?  

The insurer is aware of the make, model and year.  So, they can easily make an initial decision based on that.   

On Autotrader that age and mileage are advertised at the £5,000 mark so I am surprised they have done this.

I am not given the current shortage of parts and costs that a delayed repair can result in.   The threshold for writing off has increased recently because of that.

lazydave

DullGreyGuy said:

If you want the car back then advise them that if its a total loss that you wish to buy/retain the salvage. The total loss payment will be reduced to reflect what their salvage merchant would have paid them. 

You want selling price not advertised price... there are various free tools online but most require the registration plate. Using a random online vehicle (advertised at £5,000) one such tool suggests £3,000 is a more realistic value... no idea how closely it matches yours in terms of varient etc. 

A car is written off typically when the estimated repairs are more than 60% of the value of the vehicle, for older cars they may allow a little more. So based on £3,000 valuation if repairs are £1,500 or more its fairly likey to be a write off and given insurers use brand new parts and you've mentioned at least two areas of damage its probably not too surprising that they believe its a total loss even before inspection. 

Thanks DullGreyGuy.  They don't really do variants of those Jeeps.  There's the 3.0D CRD (mine), a fancy version of that with satnav (Overland I think) then a 5.8 petrol.  That's it.  Can you point me in the direction of one of those tools?  Thanks

lazydave

dunstonh said:

I don't understand how they can write off the car BEFORE it's been valued?  

The insurer is aware of the make, model and year.  So, they can easily make an initial decision based on that.   

On Autotrader that age and mileage are advertised at the £5,000 mark so I am surprised they have done this.

I am not given the current shortage of parts and costs that a delayed repair can result in.   The threshold for writing off has increased recently because of that.

All that makes sense dunstonh thank you

lazydave

lazydave said:

DullGreyGuy said:

If you want the car back then advise them that if its a total loss that you wish to buy/retain the salvage. The total loss payment will be reduced to reflect what their salvage merchant would have paid them. 

You want selling price not advertised price... there are various free tools online but most require the registration plate. Using a random online vehicle (advertised at £5,000) one such tool suggests £3,000 is a more realistic value... no idea how closely it matches yours in terms of varient etc. 

A car is written off typically when the estimated repairs are more than 60% of the value of the vehicle, for older cars they may allow a little more. So based on £3,000 valuation if repairs are £1,500 or more its fairly likey to be a write off and given insurers use brand new parts and you've mentioned at least two areas of damage its probably not too surprising that they believe its a total loss even before inspection. 

Thanks DullGreyGuy.  They don't really do variants of those Jeeps.  There's the 3.0D CRD (mine), a fancy version of that with satnav (Overland I think) then a 5.8 petrol.  That's it.  Can you point me in the direction of one of those tools?  Thanks

They have offered me £4k and some change after the excess has been taken into consideration.  Apparently it is a category X which I think means not much wrong with it.  

I am waiting to see what Copart want as a buyback price.  Interestingly they have the same year model on their site with twice the milage (129k vs 65k) and have an estimated retail value of £4350.

Should I haggle a bit or just count my blessings?

Thanks