Parked car hit by DHL lorry - whats next?

egsi10

After delivering to a Morrisons corner-shop, a  DHL lorry has reversed into an unoccupied parked car scraping and denting the front and back passenger wheel arch breaking the front passenger door and entirely smashing the back windscreen... because the driver was leaning over to open the passenger door to let his mate in - not looking whilst in gear and supposedly the auto-hold handbrake has come off.

We're waiting to be told if they will write the car off as total loss as its 10 years old with high mileage (Diesel) - they haven't given us a time frame for this. If this is the case, unfortunately we're not exactly in the best place to find twice the amount the pay out might be to buy a replacement (one of us has recently moved to 0hr contract agency work) - but we can't be without a car as one of us works in emergency services.

Is there anything else we can do besides settle for what DHL insurance say? Are there any other legal channels we can pursue to help cover extra costs if they refuse to repair our current car or write it off?

Its so unfair that we might end up over 5k out of pocket because of this when no one was in the car and the driver even said he saw it but hit it anyway.

The car was privately owned & it was obviously non-fault for us - not sure if that matters.  In someways - perhaps its ended up being worse for us it was unoccupied as theirs no ability to claim for PI to help cover extra costs incurred. We only moved in 2 months ago - terrible mistake!

huckster

What have your own Insurers advised you?

You have to report it to your Insurers as a condition of your Insurance contract.

A car is only worth current market value of what it would cost to replace. Do some research. Check Parkers guide or Glass.co.uk. 

Keep_pedalling

You are not entitled to betterment, why do you think you can’t buy a similar spec car with the same mileage as your existing one for the money you will get.

Vitor

- We're waiting to be told if they will write the car off as total loss as its 10 years old with high mileage (Diesel) - 

If the write-off is category S or N, you can buy it back and legally repair and re-use it. Could be worth looking at if you don't care about the cosmetic damage and can get the car roadworthy in an independent garage and/or 'mates rates' for the repair.

How the buy-back works
The insurer deducts the salvage value (usually 10–20% of market value) from your payout. You then keep the damaged vehicle.
Example:If they value your car at £4,000:
Salvage value: £500 (approx)
They pay you £3,500 cash, and you keep the car.
You can then repair it privately

If you want to take the market value instead, their first offer will always be insulting. Push back based on examples of sold prices of similar vehicles. Highlight features that add value (recent MOT, service history, new tyres, etc.).

You can also claim consequential losses directly caused by DHL’s negligence, including:
Loss of use (if you’ve been without a car and had to use taxis, hire cars, or public transport).
Lost earnings if you had to miss shifts because of the situation
Car hire costs (they must provide a comparable replacement if you need one for essential commuting).
Any recovery/storage fees (if the car was removed or kept at a garage pending assessment).

MyRealNameToo

Vitor said:
You can also claim consequential losses directly caused by DHL’s negligence, including:

Loss of use (if you’ve been without a car and had to use taxis, hire cars, or public transport).
Lost earnings if you had to miss shifts because of the situation

Car hire costs (they must provide a comparable replacement if you need one for essential commuting).

Any recovery/storage fees (if the car was removed or kept at a garage pending assessment).

You can't claim loss of use and alternative transport, it's one or the other. 

egsi10 said:

If this is the case, unfortunately we're not exactly in the best place to find twice the amount the pay out might be to buy a replacement (one of us has recently moved to 0hr contract agency work) - but we can't be without a car as one of us works in emergency services.

Is there anything else we can do besides settle for what DHL insurance say? Are there any other legal channels we can pursue to help cover extra costs if they refuse to repair our current car or write it off?

Its so unfair that we might end up over 5k out of pocket because of this when no one was in the car and the driver even said he saw it but hit it anyway.

The car was privately owned & it was obviously non-fault for us - not sure if that matters.  In someways - perhaps its ended up being worse for us it was unoccupied as theirs no ability to claim for PI to help cover extra costs incurred. We only moved in 2 months ago - terrible mistake!

There should be no need to add anything to the total loss valuation, it should buy you a like for like replacement immediately before it was hit. Now if you are saying you dont want a 10 year old high mileage diesel or you want a 2 year warranty on the new car those are all elements of betterment that no one else will be liable for.

Normally you'd be going through your insurers which does give you other options but as you are claiming directly from the third party your other option is going to court but then you would need your own engineers report to value the vehicle and the salvage etc etc.

Slightly odd that you say you wish you were injured 

Myci85

Don't expect to get enough from a write off payout to actually buy like for like. A few years ago my car was bumped into from car behind. Tiniest bit of damage to bumper, but they wrote it off without even inspecting it due to age and mileage. Offered far less than the current market value, I found 10 examples of similar cars for sale to prove the payout was far too low, they ignored them and found 1 example they felt justified their payout (not similar in model, higher mileage) and refused to offer more. 

As someone mentioned above, I bought the car back for scrap value, had my usual garage check it over to make sure no hidden damage, and 5 years on it is still going. 

MyRealNameToo

Myci85 said:

Don't expect to get enough from a write off payout to actually buy like for like. A few years ago my car was bumped into from car behind. Tiniest bit of damage to bumper, but they wrote it off without even inspecting it due to age and mileage. Offered far less than the current market value, I found 10 examples of similar cars for sale to prove the payout was far too low, they ignored them and found 1 example they felt justified their payout (not similar in model, higher mileage) and refused to offer more. 

As someone mentioned above, I bought the car back for scrap value, had my usual garage check it over to make sure no hidden damage, and 5 years on it is still going. 

Problem with adverts is that they are asking prices not selling prices. AutoTrader will happily take my advertisement fee to list my former Citroen Saxo X for £20,000 even though it's worth 1/100th of that. 

Insurers follow the FOS' guidance which is to use the motor trade "books" like GAP, Glass, Parkers etc. These are used by the motor industry, insurers, finance companies etc and are created using actual recorded sale prices. Given the breadth of users the books can't under or over rate vehicles to do the industry a favour because under valuing them for insurers would mean sellers of cars are getting less for the vehicles they are selling than they want and similarly overstating values will annoy finance companies who find the car isnt worth close to what the balloon payment they set etc. 

The FOS notes the books generally are very close to each other so generally it's fine for the insurer to pick any of them or an average of them. They do advise more care is needed when one is materially different to the rest. Clearly each book has different sources of sales prices so minor differences are to be expected but the fact they are generally so consistent is taken as a good sign that they are accurate. 

In principle it doesnt stop someone being ripped off and paying far too much for a secondhand car but then that sales price gets fed back into the process and will move the needle.

I say "books" as they used to be physical books published each month. Obviously these days they are online tools and are updated more regularly but the name stuck. 

born_again

Myci85 said:

Don't expect to get enough from a write off payout to actually buy like for like. A few years ago my car was bumped into from car behind. Tiniest bit of damage to bumper, but they wrote it off without even inspecting it due to age and mileage. Offered far less than the current market value, I found 10 examples of similar cars for sale to prove the payout was far too low, they ignored them and found 1 example they felt justified their payout (not similar in model, higher mileage) and refused to offer more. 

As someone mentioned above, I bought the car back for scrap value, had my usual garage check it over to make sure no hidden damage, and 5 years on it is still going. 

Did you not complain & if the did not budge you have the right to go to FOS