How much should I expect from my Insurers?
Discussion
So an old topic BUT... I am now at the painful stage of negotating the value of my total loss (stolen) BMW535d. Parkers value it (Dealer price) as £19,371. Glass (Dealer price)at £17,490. The insurer has come back with a revised bid of £17,170 but looking on Autotrader - the only real fair value indicator as far as I can tell - It seems to be worth around £18,500.
Any advice on holding out for it?(!)?
Any advice on holding out for it?(!)?
Edited by TOM500 on Monday 17th December 16:50
TOM500 said:
So an old topic BUT... I am now at the painful stage of negotating the value of my total loss (stolen) BMW535d. Parkers value it (Dealer price) as £19,371. Glass (Dealer price)at £17,490. The insurer has come back with a revised bid of £17,170 but looking on Autotrader - the only real fair value indicator as far as I can tell - It seems to be worth around £18,500.
Any advice on holding out for it or is this another victory for the theives?
I was going to help but...Any advice on holding out for it or is this another victory for the theives?
Was your car a pristine example, and do you have photos to back that up. Did it have a full BMWSH?
More importantly, is the £1000 crucial to your life, and do you have the time to argue it?
If you answered very and yes to those last two - then by all means put together a pack for the insurers including photos of your car before being stolen, details of its spec and provenance, and forward all of that to the insurer, along with classified ads of cars you would consider a suitable replacement.
If however the £1000 isn't crucial to you, take the money, buy a new car, and move on.
More importantly, is the £1000 crucial to your life, and do you have the time to argue it?
If you answered very and yes to those last two - then by all means put together a pack for the insurers including photos of your car before being stolen, details of its spec and provenance, and forward all of that to the insurer, along with classified ads of cars you would consider a suitable replacement.
If however the £1000 isn't crucial to you, take the money, buy a new car, and move on.
TOM500 said:
edits - It's more that with 2x MaxiCosi car seats in and a pram and some other effects which they point blank refuse to cover, it is to minimise the total loss. Help as ever much appreciated!
Is that stuff not covered under home contents insurance?Edited by TOM500 on Monday 17th December 17:00
When this happened to me - I refused their offer and sent an long email with links to similar spec cars to mine in both AT and PH.
They suggested I was over-egging it.
Then I asked them to send me links for cars I could buy.
They sent links for much older cars and cars with no leather, no electric windows, no roof, no wheels - the usual b
ks.
So I refused their offer again.
(All the while I am in the hire car they are paying for...)
Finally a reasonable bloke phoned me up and made a sensible offer.
They suggested I was over-egging it.
Then I asked them to send me links for cars I could buy.
They sent links for much older cars and cars with no leather, no electric windows, no roof, no wheels - the usual b
ks.So I refused their offer again.
(All the while I am in the hire car they are paying for...)
Finally a reasonable bloke phoned me up and made a sensible offer.
Gruber said:
TOM500 said:
edits - It's more that with 2x MaxiCosi car seats in and a pram and some other effects which they point blank refuse to cover, it is to minimise the total loss. Help as ever much appreciated!
Is that stuff not covered under home contents insurance?Edited by TOM500 on Monday 17th December 17:00
Have you rejected their initial offer yet? I recently settled a claim on the 4th offer; by that time I think they just wanted to get rid of me! I used Wisebuyers to get a view of how much mileage and age was worth, then spent an hour on autotrader looking at every car within 100 miles and "normalising" it against the value of mine. Every time they made me an offer, it was then simpy a case of saying "find me a single car available in my local area etc." Mine was a lot lower value claim than yours, but they offered me £1450 originally when the cheapest car was £1550, a year older, 10K miles more, and 300 miles away. Eventually got £2000 out of them 
If you have had a big expenditure recently I would let the ins company know. I paid £9300 for a BMW 735i sport in 2003. I ran it for 18 months and put 35 k miles on it (from 45 to ~80k miles) it was written off in a no fault accident, the ins company eventually offered £8500, As a final push, I advised that I had put £400 worth of tyres on it a couple of weeks prior to the accident (which I had), they upped the offer to £8800. Accepted their offer with delight.
Good luck. I had a bloke drive into the back of me. I was sitting in traffic on a slip road on the M25. I was in a Saab 9000 Aero which I had brought 2 days before. It was only a banger for £900. They paid me £550 for it and said I had paid too much for the car 2 day previously. I showed them links to cars with no mot and broken gearboxes for more money. They where having none of it. The joke of the matter is, they gave me a freelander for 3 months as a hire car while we argued the toss over £350.
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