Fighting insurance company over payout - advice needed
Discussion
My wife managed to write our car off at the weekend (her fault, everyone OK) and our insurance company have written it off. They made their first offer of £28.5k, which they say is “market rate” based on the best number from Glass’s Guide and CAP. The problem is that looking around on here and AT, to get a car of the same age, mileage, spec and condition needs more like £32.5k so we’re a long way apart.
In the past, the advice has always been to send a bunch of adverts to the insurer to prove the value but my insurance company say they only go off the guides and that adverts only show the asking price and not the actual sale price. The advice from the Ombudsman basically says the same thing: if the insurance company has used Glass’s or CAP correctly then the offer is legit, even when the book price is demonstrably fantasy.
Does anyone have recent experience of dealing with this and successfully getting a decent payment? Will they shift position on “market value” given enough adverts?
In the past, the advice has always been to send a bunch of adverts to the insurer to prove the value but my insurance company say they only go off the guides and that adverts only show the asking price and not the actual sale price. The advice from the Ombudsman basically says the same thing: if the insurance company has used Glass’s or CAP correctly then the offer is legit, even when the book price is demonstrably fantasy.
Does anyone have recent experience of dealing with this and successfully getting a decent payment? Will they shift position on “market value” given enough adverts?
I had the same issue, albeit 10-12 years back when someone wrote my car off (their fault, admitted liability).
It was a rare import, the offer was c.£3k and the replacement cost was more like £12-14k back then.
At the time I was told (and of course can't verify truth in this) that during payouts, you can ask to be put into a replacement car, rather than a cash payout. After all, you've been inconvenienced here and likely will be further inconvenienced if you have to go and find and buy another car with their cheque.
My argument was: Here are the for sale options (there were only 5-6 in the country), either you pay out enough to buy me one of these, or, source me another at the same year, mileage, condition and spec of the one your client has wrote off.
They paid out the going rate in the end.
Might work for you, might not - worth a shot.
It was a rare import, the offer was c.£3k and the replacement cost was more like £12-14k back then.
At the time I was told (and of course can't verify truth in this) that during payouts, you can ask to be put into a replacement car, rather than a cash payout. After all, you've been inconvenienced here and likely will be further inconvenienced if you have to go and find and buy another car with their cheque.
My argument was: Here are the for sale options (there were only 5-6 in the country), either you pay out enough to buy me one of these, or, source me another at the same year, mileage, condition and spec of the one your client has wrote off.
They paid out the going rate in the end.
Might work for you, might not - worth a shot.
NotoriousREV said:
I said that on the phone. They said “we don’t offer that service. We don’t offer like for like replacement, we offer market rate”.
The trouble is that you, the “man in the street” , does not buy cars at the Glass’ guide “market rate”, and for a used car at ~30k you’re not going to risk buying one from a private seller either. You’ll be looking at retail. They need to sort this sort of rubbish out; they’re taking the piss.
Going through the same.
Claim made 21st Dec
Nothing from insurer until 17th Jan when they ssid its a write off
No one has seen the car, damage is probably £800-1000 tops
Offer of 8k made, its worth 11k all day long
Refuse to budge a millimetre, offered to supply examples of similar cars - not interested
Just standing by CAP offer
Lodged complaint - not waiting for 8 week internal complaint process or prospect of 12 month FOB complaint so going legal
Have carpet bombed their Instagram and Facebook pages, found out their CEOs email address and their Press office email address and contacted them detailing very precisely what has happened
Got a response from CEO within 10 minutes promising to investigate
The FCA sent an open letter to the CEOs of all UK based insurers in Sept 2022 warning them not to underpay on total loss payouts - its clearly pretty widespread
Good luck
Claim made 21st Dec
Nothing from insurer until 17th Jan when they ssid its a write off
No one has seen the car, damage is probably £800-1000 tops
Offer of 8k made, its worth 11k all day long
Refuse to budge a millimetre, offered to supply examples of similar cars - not interested
Just standing by CAP offer
Lodged complaint - not waiting for 8 week internal complaint process or prospect of 12 month FOB complaint so going legal
Have carpet bombed their Instagram and Facebook pages, found out their CEOs email address and their Press office email address and contacted them detailing very precisely what has happened
Got a response from CEO within 10 minutes promising to investigate
The FCA sent an open letter to the CEOs of all UK based insurers in Sept 2022 warning them not to underpay on total loss payouts - its clearly pretty widespread
Good luck
Edited by Andy665 on Thursday 19th January 20:15
Edited by Andy665 on Friday 20th January 09:40
Andy665 said:
Going through the same.
Claim made 21st Dec
Nothing from insurer until 17th Jan when they ssid its a write off
No one has seen the car, damage is probably £800-1000 tops
Offer of 8k made, its worth 11k all day long
Refuse to budge a millimetre, offered to supply examples of similar cars - not interested
Just standing by CAP offer
Lodged complaint - not waiting for 8 week internal complaint process or prospect of 12 month FOB complaint so going legal
Have carpet bombed their Instagram and Facebook pages, found out their CEOs email address and their Press office email address and contacted them detailing very precisely what has happened
Got a response from CEO within 10 minutes promising to investigate
The Financial Ombudsman Bureau sent an open letter to the CEOs of all UK based insurers in Dec 2022 warning them not to underpay on total loss payouts - its clearly pretty widespread
Good luck
Good to know, thanks. I don’t suppose you have a link to that open letter, do you?Claim made 21st Dec
Nothing from insurer until 17th Jan when they ssid its a write off
No one has seen the car, damage is probably £800-1000 tops
Offer of 8k made, its worth 11k all day long
Refuse to budge a millimetre, offered to supply examples of similar cars - not interested
Just standing by CAP offer
Lodged complaint - not waiting for 8 week internal complaint process or prospect of 12 month FOB complaint so going legal
Have carpet bombed their Instagram and Facebook pages, found out their CEOs email address and their Press office email address and contacted them detailing very precisely what has happened
Got a response from CEO within 10 minutes promising to investigate
The Financial Ombudsman Bureau sent an open letter to the CEOs of all UK based insurers in Dec 2022 warning them not to underpay on total loss payouts - its clearly pretty widespread
Good luck
Edited by Andy665 on Thursday 19th January 20:15
I was in this situation a few years ago when my Mum wrote off her car. Insurer offered £8k-ish for a car with 11k on the clock. Couldn't find anything for less than £9.2k but these had done 30k+.
Screenshotted 3 local examples from Autotrader and 2 from further afield into an email with the magic words "COMPLAINT".
Offer of £9.5k came 48 hours later if I would close the complaint. I'm finding with an increasing amount of organisations, the only way to get satisfactory redress is to say the C word.
Screenshotted 3 local examples from Autotrader and 2 from further afield into an email with the magic words "COMPLAINT".
Offer of £9.5k came 48 hours later if I would close the complaint. I'm finding with an increasing amount of organisations, the only way to get satisfactory redress is to say the C word.
Glass's guide is for trade. You aren't trade. Send them the adverts for a car similar to your and stand your ground.
Your policy probably says something along the lines of "like for like' replacement when written off.
If you can't buy trade, they need to pay more.
Also first rule of insurance claims is NEVER accept the first offer. It's always a low ball.
Your policy probably says something along the lines of "like for like' replacement when written off.
If you can't buy trade, they need to pay more.
Also first rule of insurance claims is NEVER accept the first offer. It's always a low ball.
NotoriousREV said:
In the past, the advice has always been to send a bunch of adverts to the insurer to prove the value
August 2021 we had a car stolen. First offer was a couple of thousand under the advertised price of replacements. I called up the very closest match, negotiated with that dealer on the car over the phone and the dealer emailed me over an 'invoice'. I sent that along with 4 other adverts and they paid out within a couple of days. Insurer has two place names as a name.zedx19 said:
Seems insurers are playing hardball, my mate had some women on a roundabout drive into the side of him, writing off his car. Cheapest on ebay or Autotrader was 8k for the exact same car, insurers offered 5k and wouldn't budge, even when shown adverts.
Insurers are being hit by the higher value of cars, so many are playing hardball, hoping that many people will just accept it and go away. If 50% of their claimants accept the first offer than of say £2k below replacement cost, then they are onto a winner. Many people use a claim to slightly upgrade on a car with their payout.It's also the Insurers own fault. In Nov 2019, I bought my Mum a year old Honda Jazz for c. £10,499. Each year the Insurers have given a replacement cost of c£14k at renewal. OK values may have softened a little, but they know full well what they are insuring a car for.
NotoriousREV said:
Good to know, thanks. I don’t suppose you have a link to that open letter, do you?
Heres the link that details the reasoning and there is an embedded link in there to the actual letter - it was actually the FCA and Sept 22, not the FOB and Dec 22https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/insuran...
Geoffcapes said:
Also first rule of insurance claims is NEVER accept the first offer. It's always a low ball.
Many years ago, late 80s or early 90s, someone I know had their newish Volvo written off. He told me he wasn't accepting a penny under £21K. They came back with an offer of £22.5K. Happy days. But no, he rejected it, never accept the first offer. They asked for evidence, which he struggled to find. It dragged on, until they discovered he had a GL and they'd offered on a GLE ( or something like that). They'd made an offer on a better model than he owned. So they reduced their offer to £21K. He ended up having to accept it. If he'd bitten their arm off at the first offer, he probably would have got the £22.5K. TwigtheWonderkid said:
Many years ago, late 80s or early 90s, someone I know had their newish Volvo written off. He told me he wasn't accepting a penny under £21K. They came back with an offer of £22.5K. Happy days. But no, he rejected it, never accept the first offer. They asked for evidence, which he struggled to find. It dragged on, until they discovered he had a GL and they'd offered on a GLE ( or something like that). They'd made an offer on a better model than he owned. So they reduced their offer to £21K. He ended up having to accept it. If he'd bitten their arm off at the first offer, he probably would have got the £22.5K.
Perhaps I should have put 'never accept the first offer, unless it's better than what you wanted'.When I worked in Motor insurance claims the first offer was always derisory. Although that was donkeys years ago!
Unfortunately you might not get much further than them moving to CAPS/Glass etc - I had a car written off and the highest book value was £750, yet to buy any runners of it on the market was £2-3k minimum.
They refused to look at any adverts that weren't Trade on autotrader, and even when one did pop up they claimed it wasn't valid as it wasn't an exact match (my car had FSH, this didn't), and refused to pay out.
Took it to the ombudsman and they upheld the insurer's position.
They refused to look at any adverts that weren't Trade on autotrader, and even when one did pop up they claimed it wasn't valid as it wasn't an exact match (my car had FSH, this didn't), and refused to pay out.
Took it to the ombudsman and they upheld the insurer's position.
Krikkit said:
Unfortunately you might not get much further than them moving to CAPS/Glass etc - I had a car written off and the highest book value was £750, yet to buy any runners of it on the market was £2-3k minimum.
They refused to look at any adverts that weren't Trade on autotrader, and even when one did pop up they claimed it wasn't valid as it wasn't an exact match (my car had FSH, this didn't), and refused to pay out.
Took it to the ombudsman and they upheld the insurer's position.
Sadly there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Ombudsman is in the pockets of the insurers, can't bite the hand that feeds it.They refused to look at any adverts that weren't Trade on autotrader, and even when one did pop up they claimed it wasn't valid as it wasn't an exact match (my car had FSH, this didn't), and refused to pay out.
Took it to the ombudsman and they upheld the insurer's position.
I have re-emailed the CEO this morning stating I am not going away and that no one has contacted me
Got a call about an hour later from someone in Penny James team, perfectly pleasant and polite but not exactly armed with the facts, you could not make this up, perhaps the scriptwriters of Fawlty Towers now control Churchills customer care policy
"You want a settlement of £13,500?" - NO, I want a fair settlement, circa £10-10.5k
"Engineer is calling you to discuss a reviewed offer?" - NO, that call was made to me on 18th Jan and he refused to budge from CAP value
"When did engineer assess the car?" - not been done as stated along with the above in correspondence sent already
"I need to speak to the engineer to see what can be done. may take me a week!!" - fine
I am going to be a thorn in their side, will go down the Ombudsman route but that is slow and ineffective, a multi-prong approach is the way I'm handling this, being quite successful at carpet bombing their Facebook page which they have yet to pick up on
Edited by Andy665 on Friday 20th January 11:42
Edited by Andy665 on Friday 20th January 11:43
As an aside - I once got the last laugh. In 2014 I had a motorbike stolen, this bike was a 2008 model but had sat unregistered til 2011, when I bought it (correctly insured, by the way). Basically a new bike.
The young lass at the insurer spoke to me on the phone and was obviously thinking she was being hard faced “well the average price I can see on Autotrader is £xxx for 11 plate bikes like yours” and obviously wasn’t reading what they were insuring correctly. Happy days! I basically got what I paid for it.
The young lass at the insurer spoke to me on the phone and was obviously thinking she was being hard faced “well the average price I can see on Autotrader is £xxx for 11 plate bikes like yours” and obviously wasn’t reading what they were insuring correctly. Happy days! I basically got what I paid for it.
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