Car insurance write off valuation [Merged]

confuzzledbuyer

Our car was written off last week, and we're now trying to agree the valuation with our insurer. They are insisting that the value is £3500, which is about £1000 less than anything similar for sale. With what they are offering, we wont be able to replace anything close to like for like. I know it's not a huge amount, but we're not really in a position to absorb the extra cost currently. We were not at fault, and have only had the car 13 months. I'm just confused as to how the supposed "value" of our car can be so much lower than the for sale prices, I would imagine even after haggling we wouldn't get a discount that large surely. Where do I stand with this? Or do we just have to suck it up? Thanks

confuzzledbuyer

Our car was written off last week, and we're now trying to agree the valuation with our insurer. They are insisting that the value is £3500, which is about £1000 less than anything similar for sale. With what they are offering, we wont be able to replace anything close to like for like. I know it's not a huge amount, but we're not really in a position to absorb the extra cost currently. We were not at fault, and have only had the car 13 months. I'm just confused as to how the supposed "value" of our car can be so much lower than the for sale prices, I would imagine even after haggling we wouldn't get a discount that large surely. Where do I stand with this? Or do we just have to suck it up? Thanks

Annemos

Please see extracts from a person's Trustpilot reviews below..... this person seems to have had a result from the Ombudsman with two weeks. They updated the result today. 


Writing this to encourage you all to fight poor service and very low offers of compensation from them. After lots of calls and emails and them offering well below the market price to replace the vehicle I went to the ombudsman and they advised going direct to the insurance company which we did, again took a few calls emails but ultimately their engineers valued the car well over £2k more than the engineers at XXXX. So don’t just accept what they offer, go back and insist that this complaint goes back to the actual insurance company. The insurance company has now said I don’t need to deal with  XXX

Previous ones


Despite my complaint and directly emailing the care team. We have had no response
We have lodged a complaint through the insurance omnbusman we are hopeful of getting a respons that could mean a positive result


my son was hit from behind by another car and written off, the insurance company had told him they would deal with everything and no need to claim from his own insurance. They had said if the car was written off he’s get a retail price for it or they would source one.. XXXX   picked up the case and offered £3k less that we could buy a replacement..we rejected and gave a link to like vehicles.. they asked him to provide 5 different links to them which he did but came back with original offer and are requesting immediate return of hire car.       We have asked several times for information to take this to the insurance ombudsman..but emails  have been ignored. He has raised a complaint with the insurance company over the weekend and will pass all the info over to ombudsman this week.

Muskey

Duplicate post.

tifo

confuzzledbuyer said:

Our car was written off last week, and we're now trying to agree the valuation with our insurer. They are insisting that the value is £3500, which is about £1000 less than anything similar for sale. With what they are offering, we wont be able to replace anything close to like for like. I know it's not a huge amount, but we're not really in a position to absorb the extra cost currently. We were not at fault, and have only had the car 13 months. I'm just confused as to how the supposed "value" of our car can be so much lower than the for sale prices, I would imagine even after haggling we wouldn't get a discount that large surely. Where do I stand with this? Or do we just have to suck it up? Thanks

Why don't you get your own engineer report with valuation? Then you'll know what it's worth in the market not just the insurer offer.

tifo

confuzzledbuyer said:

Our car was written off last week, and we're now trying to agree the valuation with our insurer. They are insisting that the value is £3500, which is about £1000 less than anything similar for sale. With what they are offering, we wont be able to replace anything close to like for like. I know it's not a huge amount, but we're not really in a position to absorb the extra cost currently. We were not at fault, and have only had the car 13 months. I'm just confused as to how the supposed "value" of our car can be so much lower than the for sale prices, I would imagine even after haggling we wouldn't get a discount that large surely. Where do I stand with this? Or do we just have to suck it up? Thanks

Why don't you get your own engineer report with valuation? Then you'll know what it's worth in the market not just the insurer offer.

tifo

Muskey said:

Duplicate post.

The other post is in the wrong section.

diystarter7

Hi OP

I'd be inclined to get evidence re sale prices of same model/colour/milage and number of owners and the condition of your car inc if it was FSH etc etc

Get a price for 2 from priavte ads.
Two from smaller dealers
and if possible a price from a main dealer but this may not be possible as often they dont sell cars over x years old but some do have outlets

What car, model is it, mileage, owners, was it unmarked on the inside and clean and marks on the outside, what servie history etc.  I will try to give you an unbiased opinion re price if you can supply the info as others may

Either way, good luck

ps - what was their intial offer? who is the insurance outfit and you are aware your insurance policy will be written off with the car? (if you are paying monthly for insurance, you will still have to pay thrat)

confuzzledbuyer

diystarter7 said:

Thanks.
I've already provided them with as many examples of similar vehicles as I can find, both trade and private. Its an older car so there's not much around though really. 

It's a 2009 Ford SMax, 2L diesel, 80k miles, we're the 2nd owner. It is (or was) immaculate inside and out with full service history. 

Initial offer was £3500, and there has been no movement on this. With Aviva. I wasn't aware that the policy is also written off, but there's only 6 weeks left on it anyway so not really a consideration.

DullGreyGuy

Firstly, presumably you are looking at the top line valuation not the net value at the bottom after excess, premiums, salvage (if you are keeping the car) etc are deducted from it?

Insurers uses Glasses, CAP etc which are near realtime valuations of vehicles based on sold prices. As you seem to have twigged, what you see in autotrader etc are asking prices and sales are normally below asking... how much will vary.

confuzzledbuyer

Thanks all for the opinions. I did of course realise that asking price is not necessarily the same as sold, but the difference between the offer and advertised prices was quite large. 
This afternoon they have come back to me with a higher offer, which I am happy enough with. So make of that what you will.