Insurance write off, help required

[toni111]

I stopped at a roundabout and the driver behind me didnt, simple as that and the driver has accepted responsibility.

My car (E46 BMW 320 coupe 2002) has been written off by my insurance company.

Thats all great, but the offer from my ins company is £2110.
They are telling me that even if we refuse the offer they cant make a better offer as that is the figure glasses guide says the car was worth.

Well its my partners vehicle and i had planned to just go and replace it with the same car but looking on the classified section on PH and auto-trader I can tell you its not possible to replace it with the money they are offering.

I have said this to them and there response is that everyone over exaggerates the price they want and that I should be able to haggle and be able to buy an E46 BMW 320 coupe 2002 for the £2110 that they offered.

From looking at the prices online, I can only find 1 vehicle in that price range and its like a 3 hour drive away. Im not going to Yorkshire to look at a car when i live in essex.


What do I do? Just accept the offer? what options do i have?

[Impasse]

Use your whiplash claim to top-up the new car fund.*

*Might not be a serious suggestion.

[jimmyt1202]

what is/was the mileage on your Beemer?

[hedgefinder]

why is the offer coming from YOUR insurance company if this was a non fault accident?

[xjay1337]

Show them service history, pictures of condition, etc.
Show them adverts of cars in a similar condition and mileage to your BMW.
They will then up the price you get however it will require a lot of to'ing and fro'ing.

[X5TUU]

I had this with my TT that was written off in April.

I sent my insurer 4 adverts for identical cars:

Same plate
Mileage within 5k miles difference in either direction
Same colour
Same interior
Same body type

And managed to get my offer doubled (it was a hard slog mind as the TT at the time was a Y plate 225 cab in black with baseball leather with 110k on the clock, did the trick tho. I actually wanted more as my interior had been re trimmed to freshen it up but they refused to budge on top book price comparisons and said any further price increases would need to be via the Insurance Ombudsman service, so I just took it as we were only just over £500 apart on price, and I took the alloys off it and a few other choice pieces that I sold for more than the £500 lol

[berlintaxi]

X5TUU said:

, so I just took it as we were only just over £500 apart on price, and I took the alloys off it and a few other choice pieces that I sold for more than the £500 lol

How did you do that, I thought once they paid out it became their property, Christ knows I had a hard enough time getting the tax disc from my car when it was written off, never saw the car, just went to the recovery yard and somebody brought the disc from the car.

[X5TUU]

berlintaxi said:

X5TUU said:

, so I just took it as we were only just over £500 apart on price, and I took the alloys off it and a few other choice pieces that I sold for more than the £500 lol

How did you do that, I thought once they paid out it became their property, Christ knows I had a hard enough time getting the tax disc from my car when it was written off, never saw the car, just went to the recovery yard and somebody brought the disc from the car.

it was sat outside the evaluators/repair garage and I just popped in and asked if I could take a few things (even though it was still mine at this point, just to avoid any unnecessary questions) and they weren't bothered, it wasn't there issue, the car was basically sat waiting to be removed to a scrapper or dismantler ... I had a spare set of knackered rims for it, so I didn't leave it sat on its discs lol, and just took out the likes of the stereo, arm rest, cup holder etc... all worth a solid £100+ each used! easy money!

[berlintaxi]

X5TUU said:

berlintaxi said:

X5TUU said:

, so I just took it as we were only just over £500 apart on price, and I took the alloys off it and a few other choice pieces that I sold for more than the £500 lol

How did you do that, I thought once they paid out it became their property, Christ knows I had a hard enough time getting the tax disc from my car when it was written off, never saw the car, just went to the recovery yard and somebody brought the disc from the car.

it was sat outside the evaluators/repair garage and I just popped in and asked if I could take a few things (even though it was still mine at this point, just to avoid any unnecessary questions) and they weren't bothered, it wasn't there issue, the car was basically sat waiting to be removed to a scrapper or dismantler ... I had a spare set of knackered rims for it, so I didn't leave it sat on its discs lol, and just took out the likes of the stereo, arm rest, cup holder etc... all worth a solid £100+ each used! easy money!

Jammy sod, I had a red leather interior on my Jagaur X-Type which was written off, reckon I could have got a few quid for that alone.

[bonus99]

This happened to me with an Mk1 MX5 1.8i S Special that I had just done a load of work too. I argued with the company and we got there offer up to £1600 from an initial £900 and we bought the car back which you can do and sell for parts if its worth it.

They have to take in to account market value, the guide is not always bang on and depends what is available at the time.

I know nothing about BMW but if you look at all the used sites and gather as much info as possible to support your claim and take it to the supervisor/manager then you may get more.

buying the car back, selling some spares and scrapping whats left may be a consolation but it is a S**t when these things happen.

Good luck

BTW - whats the insurance company?

[toni111]

The insurance company is Admiral and they did put it up to top book value of £2290 i think it was but have been saying that it should be about £500 more than that, now they just put it back down to £2110 and said they have record of a bigger offer.

Really cant be bothered with all this crap.

With all this said, they have given us a New Merc C220 at £350 a day, so they are happy to use hire company and run up a bill of £10k for the hire, but wont budge on the amount they pay us for our car. Funny that!

Stupid thing is, the car im hiring is worth £21k and the hire for a month is just over £10k. Would love to own that business!

[mikeveal]

Check the small print.
If the third party refuses to pay, you are liable for that hire car.

People really should refuse to use Albany Assistance.

[SMB]

I've seen this before with them , they played hardball, but will settle to leave you the car if you can be bothered to make money breaking the car. Insurance companies show their real faces at claim time not renewal time, do take care with the hire car, they aren't paying , the third party is, so if they decide to decline the time you have the hire car as unreasonable you end up holding the cost on your cc.

[DrDeAtH]

You are a RETAIL customer. Glass' guide is TRADE prices. The I durance company need to put you in the same vehicular position you were pretty accident. Therefore they need to pay out autotrader advert prices. Penny pinching bds.

[Rick Cutler]

DrDeAtH said:

You are a RETAIL customer. Glass' guide is TRADE prices. The I durance company need to put you in the same vehicular position you were pretty accident. Therefore they need to pay out autotrader advert prices. Penny pinching bds.

Did you type this on a phone with text prediction by chance? I durance and "pretty accident"??????

[B'stard Child]

toni111 said:

With all this said, they have given us a New Merc C220 at £350 a day, so they are happy to use hire company and run up a bill of £10k for the hire, but wont budge on the amount they pay us for our car. Funny that!

Stupid thing is, the car im hiring is worth £21k and the hire for a month is just over £10k. Would love to own that business!

A whole world of pain and a whole heap of posts expected........

I'll be amazed if the other party's insurance company stomachs that charge

[toni111]

I spent 2 hours on the phone to albany assist and my ins company regarding the hire charges, they have promised me and promised me again that i will not end up with any charges. Also there is separate ins they say covers me if the third party refuses to pay.

And the reason I was so apprehensive to take a car at £350 a day is because a month ago i received a high court writ in my name for £5400 for a similar hired vehicle from accident exchange from 8 years ago where i had a bmw for 6 days whilst my car was being repaired. For a reason i cannot find out, the ins didnt pay out.

Im not too bothered anyway as I dont have any money or assets they can take anyway. Not sure why they waited 8 years to tell me though? They had my phone number, they could have called me about it!

One other thing to piss me off is that the current hire vehicle now has a flat tyre with a nail in it, not repairable and the tyre is on the limit of tread. £170 for a tyre, fked if im paying for it. my benefits dont cover my rent let alone a tyre for £170

[toni111]

My luck is amazing right now, I forgot to add that i got a parking ticket as well.
Sign says pay by phone or pay at ticket machine, but there was no ticket machine to buy a ticket?
I walked for ages looking for a ticket machine, when i got back to my car there was a fine slapped on the screen! Just how my luck is going right now!

[phPaddy]

I'd say that was a fair price for BMW 320, have a look through ebay for a true reflection of what these are trading for.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Cars-/9801/i.html?Manufa...

[toni111]

Really? on that link to ebay it shows just 3 cars like mine for that price. thats as long as you only include 320 manual only.

£1995 £1395 and £950

Ebay item : 331286358635 silver £950 bargain! gonna go buy this one! and i will still have a £1000 in my pocket! yay result