no fault car accident & lousy offer...

spabbygirl

Hi all, I hope you can help. I was involved in a car accident today, I just paused to turn right at some lights and someone went really hard into the back of me. The driver of the other car shouted at me and called the police, which I'm very grateful for cos they told him it was his fault. Anyway, his insurers rang me to see how I was & said they were going to make a final offer for the car but since it was so old it wasn't going to be much. I was still feeling poorly and went to the dr who recommends an Xray, but looking on we buy any car it seems to be worth £650. It is a really ancient Audi with a high mileage but its a great car & I don't want to loose it. Do I have to stick with this miserly offer or what are my alternatives?
 

Devongardener

Have you told your own insurance company?  Let them deal with it all and don’t be bullied in accepting anything from the other party.

spabbygirl

Good point!!! I will do, I'll ring them in the morning, I was at the hospital this afternoon so will do it tomorrow. Thanks so much Devon gardener from a Gloucestershire gardeners wife

Cloth_of_Gold

spabbygirl said:

Good point!!! I will do, I'll ring them in the morning, I was at the hospital this afternoon so will do it tomorrow. Thanks so much Devon gardener from a Gloucestershire gardeners wife

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

prettyandfluffy

Don't be in a hurry to respond to an offer, you do have options.  Tell the insurers that you do not give your permission for the car to be scrapped - yet. 

Firstly, I'm assuming the insurers will make a low offer.  Do some research and find a few examples of cars for sale of similar age, condition and mileage - AutoTrader is a good place to start.  Screenshot them showing the date and use this information to negotiate a higher offer.  This is not difficult to do, I've done it.
Secondly, if the car is being written off because it's beyond economic repair (on cost grounds) if you choose to, you can have the car back and get it repaired at your own cost.  Again, I've done this and it it's straightforward.

spabbygirl

Thanks so much prettyandfluffy what great ideas! I had heard of people getting paid off yet keeping their car but never knew how it happened. Admiral, his insurers, rang me desperate to help and I thought this is unlike any insurer I've ever had dealings with, he was very keen for me to accept a payoff but he couldn't go further cos I didn't know the mileage. Its a great idea to look through Autotrader, I can also talk to our mechanic who knows the car well, though it looks like ours just has a dent in the boot cos his car just shunted me forwards, it was his posh BMW that came off worse, and I suspect, his self esteem!
That is so helpful both of you, this is such a great way to learn the little tricks all big companies use to keep money to themselves!!

force_ten1

sounds like Admiral are trying to mitigate their losses and keep the cost of the claim as low as possible which makes good business sense for them maybe not so good for you

how badly is the car damaged because a car that has a WBAC value of £650.00 will probably actually be worth less than that and the chances of any insurance company repairing that is very very low and they will just want to scrap it because the cost of assessing the car for repair could be near the value of the car before they even start to repair the damage

Admiral were keen to deal with you because if you go to your insurance for a not at fault claim the chances are they will pass you to an accident management company they will get you in a nice new credit hire car whilst the claim is being settled and that could be charged at £70-£100 a day so a one week hire could exceed the value of your car and from my experience the claims management will drag out the claim so they can make more money because dont be under any illusion that a claims management company will do what is best for you because they wont             

be very wary of taking a credit hire car and signing the hire agreement and if you are unsure why just google credit hire horror stories

now if the insurance say the car is total loss and has a value of £600 and that is what they offer you then you could choose to keep the car and they would deduct the amount that they would get for scrapping the car of maybe £200-£300 from your pay out so you would have a damaged car with a cat marker on the V5 and a small amount of money that you could use to repair the car yourself 

Bigphil1474

WBAC tend to under value cars - so if it's £650 on there, it's probably worth more. If the damage is minor, I'd go with the keep and settle up route. You'll need to get it checked out though as there could be hidden damage.

bluelad1927

You say its just a dent in the boot but also say he went really hard into the back of you. What appears to be a dent in the boot can also be hiding more structural damage. I'd certainly be looking at having it inspected before planning on keeping it.

I'm not sure how this works  and the impact on your insurance premium but it will likely be written off  as uneconomical to repair and possibly categorised as such.  

DullGreyGuy

spabbygirl said:

Hi all, I hope you can help. I was involved in a car accident today, I just paused to turn right at some lights and someone went really hard into the back of me. The driver of the other car shouted at me and called the police, which I'm very grateful for cos they told him it was his fault. Anyway, his insurers rang me to see how I was & said they were going to make a final offer for the car but since it was so old it wasn't going to be much. I was still feeling poorly and went to the dr who recommends an Xray, but looking on we buy any car it seems to be worth £650. It is a really ancient Audi with a high mileage but its a great car & I don't want to loose it. Do I have to stick with this miserly offer or what are my alternatives?

First of all, you need to separate the different heads of claim in your head... what you get for your car is independent to whatever you may get for your injury or such.

Lets be realistic, if online car buying websites are offering £650 then realistically its going to be sub £1k. If you believe the damage isn't structural then you can ask to retain the vehicle in which case the offer will remain but you will have to pay them to keep the salvage and get the difference between the two in cash. It's purely your choice if you repair the car, live with the damage etc. 

You could claim off your own insurance but there is no reason why they'd offer any more for your vehicle and its likely you'd have the excess deducted from the settlement which you'd then need to claim back from the third party insurer. 

Be careful that your insurer doesn't refer you to an accident management company. With the third party insurer having already offered to deal with you then you can find yourself having problems signing T&Cs without reading them and finding you become liable because the TPI won't pay the premium the AMC charges given you didn't need the credit. 

caprikid1

With WBAC it is not a valuation of the car, it is an offer to buy it. These are often very different things.

If you have a car they want and can sell then they will make a sensible offer sometimes more than private. If the car is something they are going to put into auction then they will almost certainly offer you a very poor offer. That is not the value of the car merely a reflection of the fact they don't want it.

I once put the reg of my low mileage mint 2.8 Special Ford Capri, the offer came back as £50, we just don't want it !.