Negotiation with insurance companies after write off

[RevNuts]

Another driver has accepted full liability for backing into my motor and turning it into a Class 2 insurance write off. He's admitted full liability (he was fully comp) and everything is being handled by his insurance company, which in this case is Swift.

Swift rang me today offering £800 (their bottom line obviously). I said that I wanted a payout that would ensure I could buy another car like-for-like. After I reminded them that the like-for-like condition was a guideline of the Association of British Insurers (their governing body) they quickly raised the offer to £1,100 (£300 extra in under two mintues...not bad).

Unfortunately, I cannot find a car like-for-like for that price, at least advertised online. In fact, the current average (based upon private and trade sellers on AutoTrader) is £1,300 min. Now Swift reluctantly disclosed that it was acceptible to use AutoTrader and other reputable sites to gather evidence for my arguement against their offer because they actually use a combination of AutoTrader and Glass data, as well as their own assessors findings, to decide on how much to offer.

I'm now considering their offer but would like to know if anyone could provide any advice on how to negotiate to a higher offer? Perhaps there are some ABI guidelines I could use to crowbar them into submission? Does anyone have a link to the ABI's car insurance guidelines per chance?

Many thanks.

Edited by RevNuts on Wednesday 10th August 20:39

[mattley]

Find as many adverts as you can for cars that you consider equivelent and mail them the links. Assuming they've got your car for inspection they can check mileage and condition against those ads and either agree a higher value or argue.

[RevNuts]

mattley said:

Find as many adverts as you can for cars that you consider equivelent and mail them the links. Assuming they've got your car for inspection they can check mileage and condition against those ads and either agree a higher value or argue.

They have the car and have completed their assesment. During the first phone call the insurer admitted that the initial £800 offer was their lowball beginning of negotiation price. Of course, I had to first remind him of the like-for-like guidelines and to provide me evidence to support his offer.

[mattley]

That's just how it works. It's no good you finding a pristine low milage example if yours is just average but stay realistic and hopefully you'll get a decent result.

[B'stard Child]

Remind them that you could ask for your car to be repaired to it's pre accident condition regardless of the cost of repair........

[RevNuts]

B'stard Child said:

Remind them that you could ask for your car to be repaired to it's pre accident condition regardless of the cost of repair........

I tried that but the insurer told me that it wasn't a legal requirement on their part. I wish I could read their guidelines.

[Jujuuk68]

B'stard Child said:

Remind them that you could ask for your car to be repaired to it's pre accident condition regardless of the cost of repair........

He could, but they don't have to, and so he would be wrong to take your misleading advice.

Indeed, some cars (cat b) physically cannot be rebuild, no matter what circumstances or special pleading you put forward.

All you are entitled to in law is "indemnity" ie to be put back into the position you were in prior to the accident, and a cash payment to the value of the damage is considered in law to be this.

[gf15]

Have you had any outlay recently on the car?

I was offered ~8k for a written off BMW and just before agreeing the write off price, I mentioned that I had just spent £400 on 2 new tyres, the already fair offer went up by £200.
Good luck.

[RevNuts]

gf15 said:

Have you had any outlay recently on the car?

I was offered ~8k for a written off BMW and just before agreeing the write off price, I mentioned that I had just spent £400 on 2 new tyres, the already fair offer went up by £200.
Good luck.

Loads, about £1,250 worth, including tyres, cam belt, brakes, power steering pump, etc. I mentioned the cost of recent work carried out but he proposed that maintainence didn't make any difference. I thought this suspisious, but I haven't got any facts to counter his claim. Are they legally bound to consider this, do you know?

I would have thought a like-for-like car would include a recently changed like-for-like cam belt.

[saaby93]

RevNuts said:

Another driver has accepted full liability for backing into my motor and turning it into a Class 2 insurance write off. He's admitted full liability (he was fully comp) and everything is being handled by his insurance company, which in this case is Swift.

Swift rang me today offering £800 (their bottom line obviously). I said that I wanted a payout that would ensure I could buy another car like-for-like. After I reminded them that the like-for-like condition was a guideline of the Association of British Insurers (their governing body) they quickly raised the offer to £1,100 (£300 extra in under two mintues...not bad).

Unfortunately, I cannot find a car like-for-like for that price, at least advertised online. In fact, the current average (based upon private and trade sellers on AutoTrader) is £1,300 min. Now Swift reluctantly disclosed that it was acceptible to use AutoTrader and other reputable sites to gather evidence for my arguement against their offer because they actually use a combination of AutoTrader and Glass data, as well as their own assessors findings, to decide on how much to offer.

I'm now considering their offer but would like to know if anyone could provide any advice on how to negotiate to a higher offer? Perhaps there are some ABI guidelines I could use to crowbar them into submission? Does anyone have a link to the ABI's car insurance guidelines per chance?

Many thanks.

You have to find evidence of an equivalent car ( and reasonably convenient)
If youve been through autotrader and found one thats equivalent for £1300 and show it to them they'll realise that you can probably haggle down to about £1100 and offer you that.

[B'stard Child]

Jujuuk68 said:

He could, but they don't have to, and so he would be wrong to take your misleading advice.

Indeed, some cars (cat b) physically cannot be rebuild, no matter what circumstances or special pleading you put forward.

All you are entitled to in law is "indemnity" ie to be put back into the position you were in prior to the accident, and a cash payment to the value of the damage is considered in law to be this.

That too would do fine - like for like

[Gallen]

Jujuuk68 said:

Indeed, some cars (cat b) physically cannot be rebuild, no matter what circumstances or special pleading you put forward.

All you are entitled to in law is "indemnity" ie to be put back into the position you were in prior to the accident, and a cash payment to the value of the damage is considered in law to be this.

...Cat B car CAN be returned to the road. This is not illegal. It would simply have to pass a VIC (treated the same as a Cat C). However selling this car to anyone other than a dismantler with a waste disposal licence would place the salvage agent (or ins. co) in breach of the MIAFTR / ABI T&C's.

This is where it gets interesting:- Assuming the vehicle had been classified as Cat B but the claim has not been settled, the car IS still the property of the owner/insured. There is no legal obligation to sign over YOUR vehicle to the insurance company whatsoever.

So, by not being able to come to an agreement in price valuation (or for whatever other reason) you may want your car back (it's up to you if you claim or not). However, if the ins.co has already classified it as a Cat B but you dont claim, even after a private repair your car will now have been de-valued by it's HPi status!!!!! (leaving you worse off than before you contacted them).

I think the categorisation system is misleading, irrelevant and a smoke screen used by insurance companies to hide behind as most people either assume they have rights to their vehicles once the car has been assessed.

The code of conduct followed by the insurance companies (ABI/MIAFTR etc.) is also very unfair. It basically gives them the power to list your vehicle on HPI, regardless of you actually persuing a claim or not. This could therefore leave you with a vehicle which is financially viable to repair albeit outside of the insurance industries limitations but would still show up as a Total Loss (simply due to the repair cost quoted to the ins.co which would be governed by their own procedures i.e can only use new parts, extortionate labour costs, potential hire car costs etc etc).

G.

Edited by Gallen on Thursday 11th August 07:45

[Steve H]

RevNuts said:

Loads, about £1,250 worth, including tyres, cam belt, brakes, power steering pump, etc. I mentioned the cost of recent work carried out but he proposed that maintainence didn't make any difference. I thought this suspisious, but I haven't got any facts to counter his claim. Are they legally bound to consider this, do you know?

I would have thought a like-for-like car would include a recently changed like-for-like cam belt.

If you can find evidence of prices for similar cars but they don't have new tyres, brakes, cambelt etc it's not unreasonable to suggest that these jobs will need to be done to bring the car up to the condition of your old one.

Routine maintenance like basic servicing may not be relevant as it would need doing again within 12 months anyway but something that might last 20, 40, 60 thousand miles is a reasonable thing to ask for if it had recently been done on your old car.

[Noger]

RevNuts said:

After I reminded them that the like-for-like condition was a guideline of the Association of British Insurers (their governing body) they quickly raised the offer to £1,100 (£300 extra in under two mintues...not bad).

RevNuts said:

Perhaps there are some ABI guidelines I could use to crowbar them into submission? Does anyone have a link to the ABI's car insurance guidelines per chance?

So...you reminded them of the "guidelines" and are now asking for the "guidelines" ?

It will be the FOS guidelines that you are after, search on here, it has been linked to a million times.

Two things to remember. 1) People post ads at a higher price than they will accept, so discount for haggle 2) Be careful about adding on "new" items that would have been expected anyway. A common mistake is to take the "A" condition price and then add on a new bit - "A" assumes everything would have been done anyway.

[3000GT ANT]

Gallen said:

...Cat B car CAN be returned to the road. This is not illegal. It would simply have to pass a VIC (treated the same as a Cat C). However selling this car to anyone other than a dismantler with a waste disposal licence would place the salvage agent (or ins. co) in breach of the MIAFTR / ABI T&C's.

This is where it gets interesting:- Assuming the vehicle had been classified as Cat B but the claim has not been settled, the car IS still the property of the owner/insured. There is no legal obligation to sign over YOUR vehicle to the insurance company whatsoever.

So, by not being able to come to an agreement in price valuation (or for whatever other reason) you may want your car back (it's up to you if you claim or not). However, if the ins.co has already classified it as a Cat B but you dont claim, even after a private repair your car will now have been de-valued by it's HPi status!!!!! (leaving you worse off than before you contacted them).

I think the categorisation system is misleading, irrelevant and a smoke screen used by insurance companies to hide behind as most people either assume they have rights to their vehicles once the car has been assessed.

The code of conduct followed by the insurance companies (ABI/MIAFTR etc.) is also very unfair. It basically gives them the power to list your vehicle on HPI, regardless of you actually persuing a claim or not. This could therefore leave you with a vehicle which is financially viable to repair albeit outside of the insurance industries limitations but would still show up as a Total Loss (simply due to the repair cost quoted to the ins.co which would be governed by their own procedures i.e can only use new parts, extortionate labour costs, potential hire car costs etc etc).

G.

Edited by Gallen on Thursday 11th August 07:45

Almost, i agree on most points, they dont have to use new parts they can use second hand parts.

[Robbo101]

Could you advise as to the make, spec, condition, mileage & service history/MOT of your car ?

[Toro Rosso]

I am going through this as well at the moment. Their initial offer was £3,200, which when I challenged it was increased to £3,900 straight away! This is on a car I think is worth £4,600ish. I have given them my evidence and it has been passed on to someone with more authority than the initial claim handler.

I must admit I don't think this practice is very moral - what if it was someone elderly with less knowledge of cars than some of us?

[LeeMad]

swift arent party to the ABI protocols im afraid, so theres no regulations you can throw at them. they simply have a common law obligation to put you back in a poisition no worse than you were in prior to the accident

[Denis O]

No doubt this will have R1Loon seething but if they persist in messing you around just stick it in the hands of an accident management company. It's amazing how much quicker and larger your payout will be when the insurance company are faced with a much bigger bill as a result of their dilatory attitude.

[RevNuts]

Noger said:

So...you reminded them of the "guidelines" and are now asking for the "guidelines" ?

It will be the FOS guidelines that you are after, search on here, it has been linked to a million times.

Two things to remember. 1) People post ads at a higher price than they will accept, so discount for haggle 2) Be careful about adding on "new" items that would have been expected anyway. A common mistake is to take the "A" condition price and then add on a new bit - "A" assumes everything would have been done anyway.

I read about the like-for-like ABI guideline online, but would be interested to read the full set of ABI guidelines (still searching for a link.) The FOS guidelines will be useful if I decide to allow the FO to handle this case, but I'd prefer to continue the negotiation on my own.

With regards to haggling: Swift tried to use this as an arguement by saying that as a buyer I can expect to pay less that the trade price. But I think this is an unknown variable i.e. there's no telling if and by how much the trader would lower the price on the day, and therefore is an invalid arguement for lowering their payout offer.