Car written off by insurance company

DullGreyGuy

bag181 said:

Just checked with insurance company. No negotiation on price - cannot go above current offer due to damage before accident. I guess I have to accept it.

You dont have to accept it, you can register a complaint and provide your evidence why it's wrong. Note that adverts in auto-trader etc are unregulated and represent an asking price not a selling price - you could advertise a car like yours for £150,000 if you wanted, but you won't find a buyer at that price. 

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/insurance/motor-insurance/vehicle-valuations-write-offs 

The above shows how the ombudsman looks at complaints about valuations of total losses, its mainly looking at the relevant guides and basing it on that unless its a very unusual vehicle or there is a good reason why the book won't be appropriate for your vehicle (they are called books as they used to be a quarterly book, these days they are online services and updated much more frequently)

jimjames

bag181 said:

Just checked with insurance company. No negotiation on price - cannot go above current offer due to damage before accident. I guess I have to accept it.

What damage was present before the accident? 15 year old car with 140k miles and existing damage is going to be limited value.

bag181

Before accident: dent in front left door, scratch in front bumper, dent in front left and right wings and damage to front left wheel and both rear wheels requiring " SR ALLOY WHEEL" as a appropriate course of action 

bag181

Just like to say many thanks for all the responses. Very much appreciated 

bag181

Car got written off after accident. Insurer has deducted about 700 pounds off market value of car due to pre- accident damage. Before  accident, damage are as follows:
    dent in front left door, 
     scratch in front bumper,
     dent in front left and right wings,
      and damage to front left wheel and both rear wheels requiring " SR ALLOY WHEEL" as a appropriate course of action (- apologies I am not a car expert, so I copied some info from damage report into this post). 

Is this deduction reasonable ?

DullGreyGuy

This is a dent in a door:


This is also a dent in a door:


Oddly they won't have the same impact on valuation. 

Secondly, either of those dents in a rust bucket 15 year old car won't have the same impact as if it was on a 3 month old Rolls Royce Phantom.

As a general rule of thumb you estimate the cost of repair and apply a discount rate. For new/prestige cars that will be circa 90% for rust buckets it may be 30%

Mildly_Miffed

So what car are we talking about, and just HOW battered was it beforehand?

cw8825

Mildly_Miffed said:

So what car are we talking about, and just HOW battered was it beforehand?

OP is drip feeding

Its safe to assume its a lot closer to