Dealing with no-fault valuation offer

Jas15

Hi,

I was rear-ended in an accident last week by a speeding driver and initiated a no-fault claim through my insurer. I was given a hire car that I assumed was a courtesy car by a third-party company who then called me about the valuation offer. I have disagreed with it completely as they are offering 7.5k but the market value is 11k. I’ve provided a lot of evidence of this and they still refuse to budge. I wasn’t aware that this company were dealing with it and I never agreed to them settling the value as I thought the third-party insurer would contact me

it seems I may not have any complaints process or financial ombudsman regarding this and I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I had known the risks involved! 

Is there anything I can do?!

DullGreyGuy

Assuming you are going down the credit hire/ accident management route with a company like Auxilis then all they will do is commission an independent engineer to confirm that the vehicle is beyond economical repair and provide a valuation. They then submit that engineer's report to the third party insurer who may agree with it and settle or may disagree and provide a settlement based on what their engineer thinks it's worth. 

Irrespective of if you claim via an accident management company or directly with the third party insurer there would be no complaints process or access to the Financial Ombudsman over the valuation of the vehicle. You only get those rights when claiming off of your own insurance as being their customer is what gives you the rights. 

Have you spoken to your own insurers about taking the damage part of the claim back in house? Its problematic because of the wasted time and therefore hire incurred and would probably mean you'd have to repay the now wasted engineer report but at least it opens up the FOS if your insurers also value your car in the £7k range. 

What makes you believe the vehicle is worth £11k? The independent engineer has nothing to win or lose by not giving an accurate figure as its not his employer or client that will ever be paying out whatever he value it at