We really need some advice here. Last Wednesday my fiance had a car accident. The insurance are saying the car is a write off and offering 5,000 for it. We had it insured for 7-10k. We still owe the finance company 5,500 and then there's the 500 excess.

Simplecover say alternatively they'll give us £3,000 cash to repair it, but the finance company are saying no, that if the car's written off then they want the money for it.

Damage to the car is all along the drivers' side, both driver's door and passenger door smashed in and damage is estimated at between 3-4k to repair.

Either way, we're going to end up losing £1000 of our money (which we can't afford as we're getting married in 9 weeks time..) and will end up with no car.

What can we do?

Any help gratefully received.

1 did you take out any GAP insurance (or is any in force anywhere?)

2 is this the Insurance Company's first offer,

This is a personal bugbear of mine with insurance companies. They ask you how much your car is worth (and calculate your premium in part based on your valuation) and then THEY tell YOU how much they will pay in the event it is stolen/Written off.

check Parkers Price guide to see what your car is worth, if it is worth substantially more then tell the insurance company that you will not accept their offer and you want at least (whatever) - negotiate with them.

The £500 excess is unfortunate but you are stuck with it.

Dont forget also that if you pay off the finance early you should get a discount.

Request an early settlement figure from the finance company so you know how much you need to get from the insurance to pay off the finance.

Whose fault was the accident?

OK it doesn't matter what value you stated when you insured the car, unless it is an AGREED VALUE policy ie for rare and unusual cars etc.

Insurers ask the question what is the value because if you give some figure that is way out of expectation it will reveal something about the car that a standard quote/proposal didn't pick up. Incidentally, what you state the value is DOES NOT generally affect the quote, unless it's over a particular amout (ie greater than £25,000). If you ring the same insurer and answer all the questions asked but change the value of the car by say £3000, providing you are not over threshhold (ie £25,000) the quotes will be the same.

If you car is a write off Insurers will offer what they call 'book' value, ie what Glass's Guide says the car is worth, recently GG values have fallen quite a lot depending on particular makes/models.

What you need to do is show your insurer how much it would cost to replace your car with a similiar make and model and mileage and condition etc. Simply stating that you owe more on finance than they are offereing does not increase the value of your car.

Best bet is look in Auto Trader or local paper and see what cars of your make/model/age/mileage/condition are selling for.

Mossy