Insurance payout
Discussion
Ive written my car off going over an item in the road and the insurance company have said its a write off (Cat N).
When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im f
ked ha.
When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im f
ked ha. LosingGrip said:
Ive written my car off going over an item in the road and the insurance company have said its a write off (Cat N).
When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im fked ha.
What have they offered, pay out and buy back?When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im f
ked ha. My car became a Cat N in 2023 and my experience was that they don't take much into account, they just came up with a figure slightly below £2K.
I couldn't find a similar model with manual transmission anywhere in the UK for less than £3K and I sent them links to the few I had found. They said they were worth more because they were M-Sport models and mine was an SE, but mine has Bi-Xenons and a sunroof and none of those cars did. I reluctantly got a another couple of hundred quid out of them and opted to keep the car for less than £500 as it had minimal cosmetic damage, had done only 120K miles and ran really well.
So I ended up keeping the car with 50% of what I paid for it in 2019, albeit now a Cat N, but it is still running fine.
I suspect you may have a battle on your hands, but I hope you get a decent outcome.
I couldn't find a similar model with manual transmission anywhere in the UK for less than £3K and I sent them links to the few I had found. They said they were worth more because they were M-Sport models and mine was an SE, but mine has Bi-Xenons and a sunroof and none of those cars did. I reluctantly got a another couple of hundred quid out of them and opted to keep the car for less than £500 as it had minimal cosmetic damage, had done only 120K miles and ran really well.
So I ended up keeping the car with 50% of what I paid for it in 2019, albeit now a Cat N, but it is still running fine.
I suspect you may have a battle on your hands, but I hope you get a decent outcome.
LosingGrip said:
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im fked ha.
LV told me they look at cars within 50 miles (I think it was 50, it was something like that). The distance came up as they used a car 200 miles away, then admitted they shouldn't have done that. Of course that car was the cheapest on Autotrader and it had obviously been put at that price, £4995, so it would appear first - it had £5995 in the screen in the picture!ked ha. The car was super easy to value - it was a special edition, a 2011 Golf Twist, and VW sold loads of them in a short space of time. There were 35 for sale from £5K to £7.5K, the dearer ones tended to note they'd had the cambelt done. As it happens both the mean and median average was £5995.
Most had done low mileage - this was 2018 - around 35K. Ours had done 70K but I don't recall any discussion of the mileage. We'd owned the car from new, it had full service history, cambelt change and had recently had a grands worth of brakes and tyres - they didn't give a toss about any of that.
In the end we got £5495 and they wouldn't budge from that - I still feel they diddled us out of £500.
Re the colour - I don't see that making any difference. I think you'd be pushed to make an argument that you can only accept a specific colour.
LosingGrip said:
Ive written my car off going over an item in the road and the insurance company have said its a write off (Cat N).
When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im fked ha.
What do you mean “without the colour I’m f****d”? How many cars are there that are the same, but a different colour within say 75 miles? I’ve picked a random distance but 75 miles is arguably near enough to be considered local ish, but at the same time wide enough to give a good spread of options. When I paid for my insurance I said it was worth £8,500 (was auto filled).
It had high mileage (almost 160,000). This puts the value down, but when i search for the colour, there are only four on Auto trader.
Prices vary from £10,000 down to £4,000. The cheapest one has similar mileage. The others are between 80,000 and 140,000. But the cheapest is 200 miles away.
Do they take into account the colour and distance from me? Without the colour im f
ked ha. As others have said, I really doubt arguing that your car is worth more because of the colour is going to work.
I've yet to encounter an Insurer that doesn't lowball payouts. I'm all for fair payouts, not immoral ones.
My Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
My Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
I went back and forth for over a month when my bmw 5 series was written off, and it got quite terse.
They wanted to pay something like £1900, but i couldn't even find a pre face lift 520d versions for that.
Mine was a 3 litre petrol manual, and one of the last E61 models.
The problem was they feed off equivalent adverts (+/- 1 year, +/- 5000 miles, same model, same engine, same transmission etc)
It was impossible with no examples for sale. They also wouldn't accept Facebook ads, where a lot of enthusiasts cars get sold. Fine for a quashqui, but unreasonable I thought.
I got £3k in the end, but it annoyed me as there's no way that's enough to buy a 270bhp manual car like mine.
I'm sure it's a coincidence that the company who deal with on behalf of insurance companies make their profits out of written off cars - they had no interest in putting me back into the position I was in pre accident.
They wanted to pay something like £1900, but i couldn't even find a pre face lift 520d versions for that.
Mine was a 3 litre petrol manual, and one of the last E61 models.
The problem was they feed off equivalent adverts (+/- 1 year, +/- 5000 miles, same model, same engine, same transmission etc)
It was impossible with no examples for sale. They also wouldn't accept Facebook ads, where a lot of enthusiasts cars get sold. Fine for a quashqui, but unreasonable I thought.
I got £3k in the end, but it annoyed me as there's no way that's enough to buy a 270bhp manual car like mine.
I'm sure it's a coincidence that the company who deal with on behalf of insurance companies make their profits out of written off cars - they had no interest in putting me back into the position I was in pre accident.
vikingaero said:
I've yet to encounter an Insurer that doesn't lowball payouts. I'm all for fair payouts, not immoral ones.
My Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
I had my 911 (2017 C2s, not rare) stolen last year.My Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
Admiral paid out 2k more than what I had paid for it 10m before. I also got the money back from the (not needed) gap and courtesy car whilst the payout was processed (which was only 2 weeks).
The process was unbelievably easy, I sent them the 2 keys, filled a form online and had a 20 min phone call.
Post copied from another post I made on a different thread of my personal experiences:
For those who don't need to read this look away as it is a long one for which I will apologise, but for the OP, take heed.
I was subject to exactly this (not yours, mine was parked at the side of the road) accident just over a year ago, you will have a fight on your hands but you need to be well prepared & willing to put up a fight.
I was up against Admiral, which is never a good start, and after telling my own ins. co. they said just to deal with the other company unless I had issues.
In the first instance they told me to get quotes for repair, which I couldn't even get a quote for over 2 weeks, so when I got a call from them & said that the car was also pushed into the next one down the road they said it is very rare that a front & rear won't be written off.
I had a look behind both bumper covers & realised that there was damage underneath so agreed to the car being a write off and then the problems started.
They said I could get a hire car replacement but that if I didn't need one the (maximum) £400 for that would be added to the settlement, we have another car, and I was off work for another 3 weeks, so decided to go this way.
They asked for pictures & replacement costs via a specific email address, so I took them found some similar cars to back up the claim of £5500 I was asking for and sent them off.
3 days later I had still heard nothing so spent the next 3 days trying every email address & phone number I could find and even raised a complaint via their website, but still nothing.
Then randomly on the next day the person I had spoken to & asked for the info phoned me & asked why I was delaying? Obviously I said I wasn't delaying & had actually done exactly what she asked for, so she said she will get back to me later that day.
By this time I was already looking for a replacement & went for a couple of test drives on a different car as what I previously had was a very rare spec (although not rare as in valuable) when I had a call back to say that they had agreed the write off and the pick up for my car was happening the next day & I needed to remove my personal plate, which I did.
On the way to seeing another car we stopped off for my wife to get some stuff from asda & while I was waiting inn the car they phoned back to agree a settlement.
She initially said (after some pre-amble) that they were willing to offer £2600, which I obviously declined in the strongest possible terms.
I then told her what to look for in autotrader & she said she had found one for £2850, and I told her to read the ad to me.
Wrong model, wrong age, wrong engine, wrong spec!
I reiterated that the closest ones in spec that I had found (not identical) were all £5500 to £5800 and that as I was the innocent third party who was legally parked on the side of the road before their clint decided to use my car instead of his brakes that I wanted to be in the same position as beforehand.
She swiftly upped the offer to a random £3800.
I then asked her where this valuation came from, to which she said "Glass's Guide" so I then asked her what the word "guide" meant and did it mean that it was a complete pricing quotation device for all exact cars or just a guide to aid valuation? Did it list my precise spec & did it give a price for my car? Which obviously it didn't.
I repeated the above about my personal valuation & insisted that I would not settle for under £5500 and was willing to enlist the Insurance Ombudsman and my own insurance company & legal assistance if needed to do so.
She then upped the offer to £4850 & added the £400 mentioned above for a hire car, then £250 for allowing just them to deal rather than accident management/my ins.co. etc £80 for transferring my personal plate which came to £5580 and I accepted.
This all took about 30 min on the phone & whilst I was VERY firm & insistant & would not be talked over no matter how many times she tried I never lost my cool & never used any obtuse language.
This is the only way to deal with them, you need to be FULLY armed & prepared to do battle, because it WILL happen.
ETA. I forgot to say that just over a week after the payout, I got an letter from Admiral saying that the complaint I raised had been found in my favour and here is a £100 cheque to compensate you, which was a nice little bonus.
For those who don't need to read this look away as it is a long one for which I will apologise, but for the OP, take heed.
I was subject to exactly this (not yours, mine was parked at the side of the road) accident just over a year ago, you will have a fight on your hands but you need to be well prepared & willing to put up a fight.
I was up against Admiral, which is never a good start, and after telling my own ins. co. they said just to deal with the other company unless I had issues.
In the first instance they told me to get quotes for repair, which I couldn't even get a quote for over 2 weeks, so when I got a call from them & said that the car was also pushed into the next one down the road they said it is very rare that a front & rear won't be written off.
I had a look behind both bumper covers & realised that there was damage underneath so agreed to the car being a write off and then the problems started.
They said I could get a hire car replacement but that if I didn't need one the (maximum) £400 for that would be added to the settlement, we have another car, and I was off work for another 3 weeks, so decided to go this way.
They asked for pictures & replacement costs via a specific email address, so I took them found some similar cars to back up the claim of £5500 I was asking for and sent them off.
3 days later I had still heard nothing so spent the next 3 days trying every email address & phone number I could find and even raised a complaint via their website, but still nothing.
Then randomly on the next day the person I had spoken to & asked for the info phoned me & asked why I was delaying? Obviously I said I wasn't delaying & had actually done exactly what she asked for, so she said she will get back to me later that day.
By this time I was already looking for a replacement & went for a couple of test drives on a different car as what I previously had was a very rare spec (although not rare as in valuable) when I had a call back to say that they had agreed the write off and the pick up for my car was happening the next day & I needed to remove my personal plate, which I did.
On the way to seeing another car we stopped off for my wife to get some stuff from asda & while I was waiting inn the car they phoned back to agree a settlement.
She initially said (after some pre-amble) that they were willing to offer £2600, which I obviously declined in the strongest possible terms.
I then told her what to look for in autotrader & she said she had found one for £2850, and I told her to read the ad to me.
Wrong model, wrong age, wrong engine, wrong spec!
I reiterated that the closest ones in spec that I had found (not identical) were all £5500 to £5800 and that as I was the innocent third party who was legally parked on the side of the road before their clint decided to use my car instead of his brakes that I wanted to be in the same position as beforehand.
She swiftly upped the offer to a random £3800.
I then asked her where this valuation came from, to which she said "Glass's Guide" so I then asked her what the word "guide" meant and did it mean that it was a complete pricing quotation device for all exact cars or just a guide to aid valuation? Did it list my precise spec & did it give a price for my car? Which obviously it didn't.
I repeated the above about my personal valuation & insisted that I would not settle for under £5500 and was willing to enlist the Insurance Ombudsman and my own insurance company & legal assistance if needed to do so.
She then upped the offer to £4850 & added the £400 mentioned above for a hire car, then £250 for allowing just them to deal rather than accident management/my ins.co. etc £80 for transferring my personal plate which came to £5580 and I accepted.
This all took about 30 min on the phone & whilst I was VERY firm & insistant & would not be talked over no matter how many times she tried I never lost my cool & never used any obtuse language.
This is the only way to deal with them, you need to be FULLY armed & prepared to do battle, because it WILL happen.
ETA. I forgot to say that just over a week after the payout, I got an letter from Admiral saying that the complaint I raised had been found in my favour and here is a £100 cheque to compensate you, which was a nice little bonus.
vikingaero said:
I've yet to encounter an Insurer that doesn't lowball payouts. I'm all for fair payouts, not immoral ones.
My Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
Direct line gave me more than I was expecting on a Vauxhall Astra a few years back. I did have a hire car though and so may be the priority was ending that ASAPMy Mum had a non-fault accident and they wrote her car off. Initial offer was around £7,300. The nearest ones I could find were £9k+ with 30k on the clock compared to my Mums 8k. so I screen shotted those and raised an initial complaint. The Insurer tried blaming their loss adjuster for incorrect figures. Really? Then he's a tosser as well as you. Final payout for an hours worth of email ping pong was £9,700. NEVER accept the first offer if you have done your homework.
Ifinishposts said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
SS427 Camaro said:
160,000 miles is nothing.
Is it? 160k on a well looked after car is pretty normal.
Some of the trucks they repair at Daves autos. Wow.
Thanks for all the repiles. All very useful. Its been a while since ive been in this position (2011ish).
I've looked at Auto Trader. There are 27 cars listed for sale of the same year.
Eight are the same spec (M Sport X Drive). Ten are just M Sports. The rest are neither. I've ignored the other ones.
There arent any with any mileage near mine (159,000). Some are Cat S or N.
Average price of X Drive M Sport is £6,750. Non X Drive is £8,300.
Will mention about not needing a hire car as well (which they offered) if its dealt with quickly.
I've looked at Auto Trader. There are 27 cars listed for sale of the same year.
Eight are the same spec (M Sport X Drive). Ten are just M Sports. The rest are neither. I've ignored the other ones.
There arent any with any mileage near mine (159,000). Some are Cat S or N.
Average price of X Drive M Sport is £6,750. Non X Drive is £8,300.
Will mention about not needing a hire car as well (which they offered) if its dealt with quickly.
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