Insurance Write off - Best approach

[tt601]

An HGV professional lost his temper with a traffic queue and decided to 'make progress' - and managed to do this to my stationary vehicle...




Insurance company/engineers after two weeks of assessing have decided its a cat B write off.

Its a sept 2015 BMW 320GT FSH good condition 115k miles blah blah and they have offered £7950 as an opening offer.

What's my best approach/response to this?

Any thoughts for advice very welcomed never having - luckily- been in this situation before!

PS As an added bonus, it also had a new full engine courtesy of BMW goodwill at 49k miles due to a failed injector. To my simple mind then, this would increase the value of the car as its effectively 'done' only 66k miles, albeit the other components of the car have done the full miles, but at least the engine is quite young!


PPS. Ironically I had filled up with £80 of diesel literally 12 minutes before said Scania 500 flatbed scoured the side- would this also increase the value a touch...?

[cirian75]

Looking at Autotrader says their offer should be around £8900

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?channel=ca...

[KungFuPanda]

You won’t get anything added to the valuation for a replacement engine. Just as a buyer wouldn’t pay extra for a car fitted with a new engine. To be honest, it would raise more questions about the car and make it a kore difficult sell.

If you’ve got a receipt for the £80 of fuel, stick it in as a claim for special damages and see how you get on. It’s a fair claim to be honest.

[Joseph Ducreux]

Cat B? Parts only, shell must be scrapped - for that damage??

Were the insurers smoking crack?!?!

[v9]

Joseph Ducreux said:

Cat B? Parts only, shell must be scrapped - for that damage??

Were the insurers smoking crack?!?!

Does look a bit strong doesn t it. I ve long ago stopped trying to figure out the logic used by insurance companies!
If that was me (other than the cat B) I d have bought it back and patched it up and run it till it died.
To the OP, the first offer is always a low ball, just haggle hard with plenty of evidence to get the best possible settlement- it s all you can really do at this stage.

[tt601]

Joseph Ducreux said:

Cat B? Parts only, shell must be scrapped - for that damage??

Were the insurers smoking crack?!?!

Interestingly they have arrived at their conclusion only from photos they asked me to send to me. No physical visit by an engineer

[Randy Winkman]

I had a parked car written off a few months ago and managed to get the initial offer raised by about 10%. Clearly I've no idea what would have happened if I'd turned it down again. It was close to what I really wanted and at that point I thought I'd rather just get on with life.

[Mr Tidy]

tt601 said:

Joseph Ducreux said:

Cat B? Parts only, shell must be scrapped - for that damage??

Were the insurers smoking crack?!?!

Interestingly they have arrived at their conclusion only from photos they asked me to send to me. No physical visit by an engineer

That doesn't surprise me based on my experience in 2023 when my car got a tap in the rear and the other insurer decided it was a Cat N without even getting anyone to look at it based on the inflated estimate provided by the repairer they recommended. I took some cash and kept the car!

If you had any interest in keeping the car I'd dispute the Cat B, maybe getting a report from a proper independent engineer.

Anyway I hope you get a good outcome.

[paul_c123]

Try hpivaluations.com

Can't get an accurate valuation without reg number.

[anyoldcardave]

There must be some logic to it, perhaps the breakers are paying more at Copart than the micky mouse repairers ?

I just got a 2016 Grand Cherokee, got it running after a chopped up engine loom stopped it, but only to break it as it is worth more in parts than selling it.