Anybody had a bike written off?

[pretzel]

What did you do regarding interim offers etc? What sort of silly does the insurer go with the first offer and what sort of sensible can you generally talk them up to?

Background:
6 month old GS500F, £3650 new, 2000 miles, only service completed was first service and that was done by main dealer. Outstanding finance (0% deal) £2800ish, insurer has offered £2100 (I spit on your offer!) I reckon to replace with similar bike/age/mileage/condition from a dealer would be around £3000 - £3200. Insurance was fully comp.

Any thoughts?

[TPS]

They normally go on trade value i beleive.To be honest £2100 sounds like a good offer to me.You may get a few hundred more but i doubt you will get anywhere near £3000 for a bike that costs £3650 brand new but is 6 months old and has done 2k.

[lawrence567]

Minus the VAT from the list price to start with!
Your probably lucky to get about £2500

[Fort Jefferson]

In 2004 I bought a Aprilia RSV mille, for £8500 brand new. I crashed it after 3 months, and it was written off. The insurance company offered me £11,300, and no matter how much I protested to, the insurance company, my broker, and the loss adjuster. I just had to take the money.

[andrew_huxtable]

Fort Jefferson said:

In 2004 I bought a Aprilia RSV mille, for £8500 brand new. I crashed it after 3 months, and it was written off. The insurance company offered me £11,300, and no matter how much I protested to, the insurance company, my broker, and the loss adjuster. I just had to take the money.

your joking eh? really they gave you more than the rrp for it? thats insane, what company was this? i need a new stereo and tv soon and i could do with their help

[Fort Jefferson]

andrew_huxtable said:

Fort Jefferson said:

In 2004 I bought a Aprilia RSV mille, for £8500 brand new. I crashed it after 3 months, and it was written off. The insurance company offered me £11,300, and no matter how much I protested to, the insurance company, my broker, and the loss adjuster. I just had to take the money.

your joking eh? really they gave you more than the rrp for it? thats insane, what company was this? i need a new stereo and tv soon and i could do with their help

No, I'm not joking. I even told them they had mistaken the bike for the "Factory" model, and thats why it was too much, but they were having none of it. I even kept the extra money to one side for a couple of years (in premium bonds) incase they wanted it back.

[Biker's Nemesis]

I paid £9300 for my 04 R1 in March 2004, and wrote it off 7 months later.

Their first offer was £5750, minus a £500 excess, it took 2 months of me sending cut outs of comparable bikes to up their offer too £7500.

[virgil]

I Paid 5300 for a 748s and managed to write it off after 30 days. Valued on the Ins at 5300 and they paid me out £5300 but held the excess of £300 so got a cheque for £5000 without quible. They they said they under valued it so gave me another £250 and then paid my excess back when it was proved not to be my fault.

Tell them to stick their offer up their ... and ask for 'proper money'. Autotrader will be your friend here....

Good luck

[sybaseian]

I had the Speed Triple SE written off by a Stag deer earlier this year. I told the insurance company that I would only accept full retail value for an identical bike, in the same condition/mileage, etc and that they could either provide a like for like replacement (very difficult) or I would name my price.

They tried to find an identical one, but they were all much higher mileage/poorer condition, so they offered me my price. All settled within two weeks of the accident and that includes 10 days of the bike being stuck in a recovery yard and not being assessed - funny how the insurance company starts moving when you tell them you are charging £40 a day them for travelling expenses until they settle up.

[virgil]

sybaseian said:

I had the Speed Triple SE written off by a Stag deer earlier this year. I told the insurance company that I would only accept full retail value for an identical bike, in the same condition/mileage, etc and that they could either provide a like for like replacement (very difficult) or I would name my price.

They tried to find an identical one, but they were all much higher mileage/poorer condition, so they offered me my price. All settled within two weeks of the accident and that includes 10 days of the bike being stuck in a recovery yard and not being assessed - funny how the insurance company starts moving when you tell them you are charging £40 a day them for travelling expenses until they settle up.

Very true - give them the figure you want with justification and they can really argue too much!!

[gillcool]

As it's a new bike they should be offereing replacement and also as it's on HP they should send the money to the HP company and not you. The best thing to do is decline the offer and tell them what you do want for it. Have comparisons to hand if you can. If your still not happy with the offer decline it again until they do come back your something your happy with or mention that you would be more than happy to let it go to arbitration.

[sybaseian]

virgil said:

sybaseian said:

I had the Speed Triple SE written off by a Stag deer earlier this year. I told the insurance company that I would only accept full retail value for an identical bike, in the same condition/mileage, etc and that they could either provide a like for like replacement (very difficult) or I would name my price.

They tried to find an identical one, but they were all much higher mileage/poorer condition, so they offered me my price. All settled within two weeks of the accident and that includes 10 days of the bike being stuck in a recovery yard and not being assessed - funny how the insurance company starts moving when you tell them you are charging £40 a day them for travelling expenses until they settle up.

Very true - give them the figure you want with justification and they can really argue too much!!

I was most annoyed with the Insurance company not getting their fingers out. One week after the accident, I called them to find out how the assessment was coming along and was the bike repairable only to find out that nobody had done anything to get it moved from where it had been recovered too (insurance company being charge storage).

I told them that I would now be charging them for all of my travelling expenses from that moment onwards until they either repaired the bike or settled - they had a choice of taxi fares to and from work (£100 each way), train fares and my hourly rate (much higher) or petrol and parking costs of £40 per day.

[pretzel]

Thanks guys.

I've told them that £2100 is laughable, I may have said something along the lines of... "which cracker did you get that one out of?" which may not help me... heyho I felt better!

Have AutoTrader-ed it, only 2 bikes similar, one older same mileage, one same age higher mileage and both £3000 so will be holding out for this. Have printed out the ads and have spoken to a local dealer where we get all our servicing done for both bikes and they reckon absolute minimum to replace would be £2800 which matches finance so would accept this if I got fed up fighting.

I'm lucky I had the funds to get a replacement bike, not as nice and shiny but it'll get me to work and back which is the main thing but would be mightily p*ssed off if I hadn't been able to and they fannied about like this.

I want them to clear the finance before paying me... makes life simpler, but I do want them to CLEAR the finance not just make a hole in it.

[Robertjp]

My bike is still sat in the garage after my off on Tuesday, waiting for pick up AAAARGH Through eBike. Really hoping they dont write it off - i cant be doing with it, the bike was virtually placed on the floor although its scratched everything on that side of the bike

How do you get on saying your charging them expenses?! wont they just laugh? do you have some kind of special clauses in your policy?

Edited by Robertjp on Friday 15th August 18:38

[sybaseian]

Robertjp said:

My bike is still sat in the garage after my off on Tuesday, waiting for pick up AAAARGH Through eBike. Really hoping they dont write it off - i cant be doing with it, the bike was virtually placed on the floor although its scratched everything on that side of the bike

How do you get on saying your charging them expenses?! wont they just laugh? do you have some kind of special clauses in your policy?

Edited by Robertjp on Friday 15th August 18:38

I told them that they were wasting my money by not getting their finger out and resolving it. The problem was I'd called them the day after the accident to get the bike assessed, and they had done absolutely nothing to get the bike moved from the recovery yard to the assessor when I rang back a week later. It was at this point that I told them I would be charging for my travelling expenses.

Although I'm fully comp, being hit by a deer you are not entitled to have a loan vehicle while your bike is assessed and either repaired or written off as the insurance company can't claim against a third party to recover their losses.

Luckily for me, I have a separate insurance policy that covered uninsured losses for my leathers, helmet, travelling expenses, etc as these are not on my bike insurance.

It's always worthwhile checking what your other policies cover.

[Mad Dave]

I wrote off a Bandit 600 that I bought (in '3 years in storage' condition) from a PHer for 500 notes - market value was 1500 and as the third party was quibbling liability it all went through solicitors - it took a year to get anywhere, and the third party insurers settled 1 hour before it went to court. I got full market value, plus money for all my kit (which was 1 day old so i had all the receipts). As it had all gone through solicitors etc the bike wasn't technically written off and i was allowed to keep it, free of charge. 300 pounds later and it was all fixed and road legal - so i traded it in. I got a further 1200 pounds for it. It was almost worth having the accident in the first place!