Been In an Accident - Advice Please?

[talksthetalk]

Good news about the liability. Ask them to provide this in writing ASAP.
Get all your receipts together, its worth a shot to tell them it was in A1 condition.
When you say Valued at £1500, you didn;t have an agreed value policy did you? (If you're not sure, the answer's no)
But gather the evidence of the cost of a similar replacement, ( there are dreamers out there who advertise their modded cars for
"std value + value of mods"
Q:
would you want it back to fix, or to get all the bits off it you want to sell on/reuse? ask them for a figure for buying it back.

[Retroman]

Thanks all for the advice so far.

I'll post back with any developments and the eventual outcome.

[Sargeant Orange]

Try a program called "Recuva" for the memory card, you never know

[Skyrat]

Fozziebear said:

Use your insurance company. They have the skills and its what you are paying them the money for. Just make sure you emphasise the car and replacement value

Has he got legal cover?

[Retroman]

I do have legal cover yeah.
I tried to use recovery software on the card, but no luck.

Thankfully he admitted liability so a some more faith in humanity once more.

[elanfan]

Insurance settlement should leave you in the same position after the claim as before - so if a Corsa CDX is £X to replace but you also had Y and Z on your car the settlement should be x+Y+Z less a bit of wear and tear on Y+Z.

Good Luck - if insurer doesn't play ball with the right amount of £'s ask them to replace the car. Usually works.

[LoonR1]

elanfan said:

Insurance settlement should leave you in the same position after the claim as before - so if a Corsa CDX is £X to replace but you also had Y and Z on your car the settlement should be x+Y+Z less a bit of wear and tear on Y+Z.

Good Luck - if insurer doesn't play ball with the right amount of £'s ask them to replace the car. Usually works.

in what way does it "usually work"?

[M400 NBL]

All the insurance company care about is the make/model of car, year of manufacture and how many miles it's done..... and the condition.

Mods often make cars worth less. I won't be the only person to spend thousands modifying a car and selling it for not a lot!

[Ledaig]

Retroman said:

Am i best dealing with them directly and informing my insurance and broker for logging purposes, or would i be better off letting them deal with it on my behalf?

I would say deal direct - this will give you an edge to work with - you are looking for what you consider to be a fair settlement, the insurance company will be looking to minimise their costs.

By dealing directly with you they are already on for a substantial saving which you can use to your advantage in negotiations.

I did this just under two years back (dealt direct with the third parties insurer Admiral). Originally they offered me just under 2K for an 8 year old Citroen with just over 80K on the clock (note - this was 1.5k cash and the vehicle back to sell at their estimated salvage of £500).
Having looked at Autotrader, despite this being a correct 'book' valuation, it would not buy me an equivalent replacement vehicle. I told them to go away and have a look themselves, and also reminded them of their own statement "we want to put you in the same position you were in before the accident".

When they called back they increased the offer to about 3.3K (2.8K + £500 salvage) and stated that they could only find one equivalent vehicle on Autotrader, now this is where you need to have done your homework, I had in front of me 8 sale descriptions from Autotrader (and these were genuinely representative, not selective high ones). I read them out with the prices and mentioned items such as no leather interior, no tow bar etc which the original had. I then put a stake in the ground and said I wanted 4.5K which was the average market price of a replacement, and I did not expect £500 to be deducted for salvage.
I then reminded them of their original statement and followed up with the comment that I had also spoken to an accident management company (which I had), who would be willing to take on the case, but who could not understand why they (the insurance company) would not offer what I was asking given I had saved them several thousand by dealing direct.

I quickly got the 4.5K plus the vehicle back which went for £500 so 5k in all.
I doubt I would have received this had I gone through my insurance.

[amancalledrob]

LoonR1 said:

in what way does it "usually work"?

It usually works in that the insurer are forced to admit they can't find a similar replacement at the value they've quoted, so they have to increase the payout. Homework is everything here - as has been said, it's important to have a good look at Autotrader etc so you know what sort of figure would be realistic.

[Retroman]

I'm dealing with the third party insurers direct now.

They offered £400 to write the car off and take it away without viewing.
I declined. I could strip what's left and scrap the shell for more than that.

Now they're arranging for the car to be picked up and stored in a salvage yard where they can conduct an engineers report to establish the value.
A hire car has been arranged as well, but still waiting to get the call from the company to arrange pick up ect.

I'm with a broker and they've got dedicated fault management team that works outside my insurers directly so they've informed me if i don't get a satisfactory offer from the third party, i can pass it to them to deal with instead.

Feeling a bit more positive surrounding it now

[CYMR0]

This is the only Corsa CDX diesel I can find on eBay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAUXHALL-Corsa-1-5-TD-CD...

This is a clean, petrol automatic:

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C397726

£500 is shed money:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1996-VAUXHALL-CORSA-1-2-...

[TPS]

Retroman said:

I'm dealing with the third party insurers direct now.

They offered £400 to write the car off and take it away without viewing.
I declined. I could strip what's left and scrap the shell for more than that.

Now they're arranging for the car to be picked up and stored in a salvage yard where they can conduct an engineers report to establish the value.
A hire car has been arranged as well, but still waiting to get the call from the company to arrange pick up ect

Keep hold of the car and ask them to send someone to you to value it.

[LoonR1]

amancalledrob said:

It usually works in that the insurer are forced to admit they can't find a similar replacement at the value they've quoted, so they have to increase the payout. Homework is everything here - as has been said, it's important to have a good look at Autotrader etc so you know what sort of figure would be realistic.

Really? News to me. I take it you've regular experience of this?

[Retroman]

I don't have much of a choice i'm afraid.
It's on my mum's driveway just now but i can't keep it there for any longer due to access issues for my disabled aunt (mum is her carer)

i don't have anywhere else sadly.

[amancalledrob]

LoonR1 said:

amancalledrob said:

It usually works in that the insurer are forced to admit they can't find a similar replacement at the value they've quoted, so they have to increase the payout. Homework is everything here - as has been said, it's important to have a good look at Autotrader etc so you know what sort of figure would be realistic.

Really? News to me. I take it you've regular experience of this?

Probably a bit more regular than most, I suppose. I work for an insurance company. My sister and her boyfriend both work for the same one. Makes for some amusing anecdotes down the pub

[LoonR1]

amancalledrob said:

Probably a bit more regular than most, I suppose. I work for an insurance company. My sister and her boyfriend both work for the same one. Makes for some amusing anecdotes down the pub

I presume not in Claims or at least I hope not. If you make duff offers then I'd question your TCF approach.

[amancalledrob]

I'm not in claims, my sister was until recently, now she's into the training side of things. TCF is important and in fact we've got a 'TCF Champion' to whom we can report any perceived issues, which is nice

[LoonR1]

Figured you weren't in Claims. Your advice isn't the best tbh.

[Retroman]

With regards to a courtesy car, would this normally be dropped off to my house for me?

The hire car company have offered me a car. Problem is with my working hours and their working hours it's difficult to arrange a time to collect it.
Coupled with the distance. It's currently 2 hours there on public transport. This isn't what i want to do on my days off work and to me seems unreasonable.