Being offered a "salvage deal" from crash

Banners24b

Last week whilst stationary, a delievry van hit the back of my vehicle - he has taken full liability. His insurance have sent an assessor and today have offered me a deal to keep my vehcicle and clain the salvage value of approx £2600, plus they are offering a cash sim of £6400.

Now I have had zero interest in trying to sell my now written off van for salvage, to suppliment their cash offer so I can buy a new van.

I have told them this and their reply says "We can only offer to deal with your vehicle damage claim on the understanding that the vehicle is to remain your property"

Surely I am entitled to a full cash sum somewhere near to the market value of the van (around 11k)  I am not sure where I can escalate too as they also state they are "unable to negotiate"

And advice appriciated 

DullGreyGuy

Well to start with they have valued your vehicle at £9,000 whereas you say it's worth £11,000 so you already have something to discuss with them. 

As a third party your options are either to go to court or to revert to your own insurers but that may now cause problems with the TPI having already inspected your vehicle. There is no formal complaints process or ombudsman if you are claiming off of someone else's insurance, those are only provided to an insurers own customers. 

Phone a local salvage company and see how much they'd pay for the vehicle. You can then counter offer them the £9,000 less what the salvage company offers. It will probably be less that what they can get for the salvage but this is the economies of scale and if they value they salvage higher then they can keep it and give you the £9k

Brie

Thing to do is to go onto a car/van sale website and see what you could buy your van for.  So same make, model, mileage.  Show them that and say that's what you'll settle for.  If that shows £11k and their current offer works out at £9k decide if you are willing to take the £9k in cash or if you want to push the number up a bit.  It's surprising sometimes how much you can get by repeatedly saying no.  

Banners24b

Thanks for the replies so far, the thing I am trying to find out is what are my rights when it comes to a settlement "deal" as the are calling it, they are insistent that I have to keep my written off van and sell or break it via salvage and they will in effect "top up" with cash. I have neither the time, inclination of means to faff about calling or negotiating with salvage yards. 

What I want is for them to take my written off van away, do what they want with it and settle the claim with 100% cash figure i.e. how every other insurance claim I've ever heard of being done. Then it's up to me to negotiate the fairness of that 100% settlement figure

I hope that makes sense 

DullGreyGuy

Banners24b said:

Thanks for the replies so far, the thing I am trying to find out is what are my rights when it comes to a settlement "deal" as the are calling it, they are insistent that I have to keep my written off van and sell or break it via salvage and they will in effect "top up" with cash. I have neither the time, inclination of means to faff about calling or negotiating with salvage yards. 

What I want is for them to take my written off van away, do what they want with it and settle the claim with 100% cash figure i.e. how every other insurance claim I've ever heard of being done. Then it's up to me to negotiate the fairness of that 100% settlement figure

I hope that makes sense 

You aren't legally obliged to be involved in long negotiations with a hundred salvage yards and you are unlikely to achieve the levels they can even if you did given the volumes they sell -v- your single vehicle. Get a single quote from a convenient place or at most 2 and suggest that as the salvage value rather than the £2,600. If they dont like it they can settle in full and dispose of the vehicle themselves.