Car Written off after 2 weeks

[Randy Winkman]

I bought a 2017 car from a dealer at the end of March and it was written off by someone after 2 weeks and 2 days. They have admitted responsibility. It cost me £9000 from a "back-street" dealer and I thought that was a very competitive price. Even though the car was low mileage and immaculate it was definitely cheaper than from a main dealer.

I've been offered £7800 from my insurance company. I've already ticked the box to turn that down but can anyone tell me basically what the process is from now? I'm going to guess that they might up the offer once but not twice. But that's a guess and as far as I can tell, I have pretty much zero power in this.

Cheers.

[SydneyBridge]

Find similar cars on autotrader and email them links, assuming they are close to what you paid!

[Jeremy-75qq8]

The third party must put you back in the position you were before the accident.

If you paid 9k a few weeks before just tell them that and refuse to settle for less.

[jondude]

You can also run free valuations on confused.com and Whatcar.

I don't know if it is still the same, but insurers used to use 'Glasses Guide'. I think you buy the valuation from them.

[jondude]

Jeremy-75qq8 said:

The third party must put you back in the position you were before the accident.

If you paid 9k a few weeks before just tell them that and refuse to settle for less.

I believe that would have needed an agreed value before the contract of insurance was signed and sealed. If there is no agreed value, an insurer will only pay the market value. Otherwise we could all buy a car for silly money, drive it into a wall and ask for the silly money we paid

[davek_964]

Jeremy-75qq8 said:

If you paid 9k a few weeks before just tell them that and refuse to settle for less.

It's not that simple really. If I sell my mate a car that's worth £2k but charge him £100k and he "accidentally" crashes it a week later, the insurers are not going to pay out £100k.

If - as the OP suggests - it was a fairly priced car, then yes - that's what he should get back (although minus whatever the excess is because it sounds like he's claiming from his own insurance)

Edited by davek_964 on Wednesday 16th April 20:22

[Earthdweller]

Jeremy-75qq8 said:

The third party must put you back in the position you were before the accident.

If you paid 9k a few weeks before just tell them that and refuse to settle for less.

I think you'll find most insurance policies have a "market value" clause in them

What a car is worth today is not what it was worth at a previous point in time, it is by definition what it is worth today, not what someone paid for it in the past

[Drawweight]

My motorbike got written off after I had it for 6 weeks.

I got a poor first offer from the third party but I just said I’d only had it a few weeks and how much it had cost (from a main dealer so not underpriced)

Result was a new offer £300 less than what I paid which I thought was fair enough.

You should be able to argue for a better offer.

[andrewcliffe]

Root around Autotrader and other classified sites finding make and model of cars of roughtly same age and mileage.
Then compare each against yours - mileage / spec and so on.

[the-norseman]

Try and speak to the engineer who is doing the write off, I managed to speak to him when they wrote off my car last year.


They offered 1200, I couldn't replace it with a bog standard model for that, pointed out it was a factory special edition and had loads of option extras fitted from factory and they upped there offer to 3200 eventually.

I sent them loads of evidence of "similar" cars but couldn't find one exactly the same.

[Countdown]

Wasn’t there some legal ruling that said InsCos couldn’t do stupid 1st offers?

Anyway bad luck OP. The last time it happened to me I got adverts from Autotrader for cars with similar mileage/ engine size / trim levels and the insurers paid market value (which was fortunate as I’d purchased it damaged repaired not recorded)

[Randy Winkman]

Thanks for the replies so far - very helpful. As I said, I've already turned the offer down and requested a call. So I'll look at prices for similar cars on line and be ready to set out my case when they call. I am quite determined though because in my opinion I'll be very lucky to get anything as good for the £9k I paid. It wasn't suspiciously low priced, just genuinely good value.

[PisstNBroke]

I would be of the persuasion to ask the insurer to find similar cars for what they are valuing your car as.
As at present your down on transportation, purchase cost, policy fee and having to now spend a lot of your own time now researching / finding your next car.

Best of luck and just remember everyone under offers to which your entitled to stand your ground.

Edited by PisstNBroke on Wednesday 16th April 21:55

[Sheepshanks]

Our insurer (LV=) found the cheapest similar car on Autotrader and offered us that value.

Only problem was the listing said £4995 but the photo clearly had a screen price of £5995 and after a conversation with the garage it was obvious what they’d done.

Also LV’s rules say the car has to be within 50 miles, and this one was 200 miles away.

I got another £500 out of them but they wouldn’t budge beyond that. I felt £6K would have been the right price.

[bennno]

Randy Winkman said:

Thanks for the replies so far - very helpful. As I said, I've already turned the offer down and requested a call. So I'll look at prices for similar cars on line and be ready to set out my case when they call. I am quite determined though because in my opinion I'll be very lucky to get anything as good for the £9k I paid. It wasn't suspiciously low priced, just genuinely good value.

You might get more than 9k on that basis, just provide comparable examples, if they are higher than you paid then so be it.

[psi310398]

When I wrote off my wife’s SLK 320, the insurers lowballed the cash offer. I did exactly as described above and went through Autotrader and eBay Motors to find a range of FSH, comparable mileage and age vehicles that demonstrated that the insurers were about £1200 adrift of the market.

I was fortunate inasmuch as I had just machine polished and thoroughly detailed the car and had taken detailed photos within a week of the accident, so the car was undeniably and demonstrably at the top end of the price range but, even so, it was a bit of a tussle.

That said, the loss adjusters have a big workload and don’t like spending too much time on politely insistent, evidence-based arguments.

[Aretnap]

Earthdweller said:

Jeremy-75qq8 said:

The third party must put you back in the position you were before the accident.

If you paid 9k a few weeks before just tell them that and refuse to settle for less.

I think you'll find most insurance policies have a "market value" clause in them

If claiming from the third party then the OP's rights are determined by liability law - the terms of the insurance policy (his own or the other driver's) are not relevant.

That said under liability law it also comes down to the market value of the vehicle - which may or may not be the same as what a particular dealer sold a particular car for on a particular day.

[davek_964]

Aretnap said:

If claiming from the third party then the OP's rights are determined by liability law - the terms of the insurance policy (his own or the other driver's) are not relevant.

That said under liability law it also comes down to the market value of the vehicle - which may or may not be the same as what a particular dealer sold a particular car for on a particular day.

Randy Winkman said:

I've been offered £7800 from my insurance company.

[Aretnap]

davek_964 said:

Aretnap said:

If claiming from the third party then the OP's rights are determined by liability law - the terms of the insurance policy (his own or the other driver's) are not relevant.

That said under liability law it also comes down to the market value of the vehicle - which may or may not be the same as what a particular dealer sold a particular car for on a particular day.

Randy Winkman said:

I've been offered £7800 from my insurance company.

Indeed, but the comment he was replying to was about the third party's obligations.

[Aretnap]

The Financial Ombudsman (only relevant if claiming from your own insurer) used to say that if a vehicle had recently been purchased second hand they would take the purchase price as a starting point for valuation, but that has been watered down in the latest version of their guidance which merely says that the insurer should consider the purchase price as well as the trade guides.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/c...