Bike value & insurance company...

[Brite spark]

I had an L reg honda rvf 400 until the end of september, unfortunately a car tried to drive through it whilst I was stopping at a give way sign, it's now a write-off and going through the insurance of the driver, their assesor has looked at, taken into account the low mileage and come up with a book price of £1750

Now here's the problem, I view the bike to be worth around £2300-2500 (IMO for condition, even though it's a grey import-as most were, believe it would cost me that if I was to replace the bike like for like). I have been unsucsessfully looking for a book price on parkers (only vfr years 92-93), mcn and bikez site, can anyone suggest another site to try please, as i would like to find a book price to compare their and my valuation to.

[Buelligan 984]

Brite Spark,

This may sound odd, but bear with me.

Remember that your claim is not against the other driver's insurance company - its against the other driver. If the insurer is making you an unreasonably low offer, consider writing to the other driver (firmly but very politely) along the lines of:

1) You caused a road traffic accident and damaged my property.
2) My vehicle was worth £x but your insurer is only offering me £y in settlement. They are not willing to increase their offer.
3) I have been seriously inconvenienced by your actions and although until now I have waited for your insurer to make an acceptable offer, I must now bring this matter to a conclusion.
4) Unless you or your insurer agree to settle for £x within xx days, I will be instructing my solicitor to commence legal proceedings against you personally with a view to sueing you personally for my total losses of £z.

Of course, you will not be instructing your solicitor at this stage, but imagine what the other guy is going to do when he gets your letter. He'll be straight on to his insurers saying "get this sorted out now". His insurers will jerk you around for as long as possible but when their own client (who ultimately pays thier salaries) starts hassling them, things usually start to move in your favour.

Dave

[Brite spark]

There is still some mitigation before it gets to that stage, believe I might be able to get the price up by showing that they are relatively rare, (before getting drastic, if that would actually help I don't know) one thing for certain, just got one bike rarer

[Lippy]

i had a similar process to go through with my car. In this case my insurers were offering me 1500 less than value of car, I sent them a polite but firm letter with example advertisements as to why my car should be valued at the correct price, £25-3500 and told them to reconsider, and that I wouldn't accept a penny less.

They did and that was that, quite an easy way out. If they come back and say 100% final offer, then the post ^ seems to make good sense.

[podman]

I was told to get some ads from the papers and send them to the Ins Co to enable them to understand the real world value of the car I wrote off..it worked for me..

[JackHolroyde]

OK,
The insurer will check a RVF in the glasses guide. This price is bullishly low, and always is. Norwich Union offered me £900 for my '92 NC30! (worth 2k)
The reason for this is the fact that the glasses people have no idea about motorcycles, but do know about depreciation. They apply standard Honda depreciation rules (such as you'd get on a CG125) to a truely iconic bike.
What you need to do is gather evidence that it will cost you £2200 to replace your bike on a like-for-like basis.

For example:

Dear Sirs,
Ref: xxxxxxxxxxx

Following your recent offer of £xxx to cover the damage to my motorcycle, I enclose documents to show that the vehicle is worth considerably more. I estimate, to replace this vehicle on a like-for-like basis will cost between £2200 and £2700.
I await your cheque for the revised amount within the next 7 days. Please note that if this is not recieved within an acceptable timescale, I will request that my solicitor intimates proceedings under the The European Communities (Rights against Insurers) Regulations 2002.

Yours Faithfully,

Joe Bloggs

Then get autotrader dealer prices and print them off and send them. I've checked autotrader and its reasonable to ask for £2400.

[rsv gone!]

You should always bear in mind that they might be called 'Claims Assessors' but they are really claims avoiders or minimisers. Hence why they'll try to wriggle out of any claim possible (and why it is essential to declare any modifications)

[Brite spark]

Thanks for the replies, but other parties insurance had already said that I might be able to get more if I could prove it was worth more than their valuation, however what I was trying to find was a book price, to compare to theirs to, so I could see what value they were using, eg dealer px price, etc

[Hooli]

get some adverts for similar bikes to show what they get sold for.
worked for a mate of mine years ago with a car. they got offered about £500, we found adverts showing £1200 asking price which he got paid eventually. bit of a deal as he paid £800 for the car originally.

[JonA]

If you bought your bike from a dealer, then get them to write a letter of valuation for the bike (with the assumption it was still in same condition they sold to you.)
If you didn't buy from a dealer, go and sweet talk a knowledgeable dealer into writing such a letter.

I did this with a TVR that I wrote off. I combined this letter, with some selective market advert examples. I also called the insurance company and said "this is my time - annoying to me, but free to me. For you though - this is your costs/profits - and I won't go away on this." I also told them that I'd escalate to the insurance ombundsman if necessary. These tactics bumped up the payout from the insurance company by around 30% compared to original offer

Good luck