hi can anyone help I was reversed into in mc donalds drive through and the girls accepted fault and I allowed her insurance to deal WITH repair quote and courtesy car they have said they don't want to repair and my car was insured for 2800 and they have offered 2200 but the only car that comes close they found is 2595 and 50 miles away.

I'm not sure where I stand as I don't have the extra money to buy the car or even travel the 50 miles.

any help would be appreciated

regards

steve

here's the email I've received from them if helps

Good Morning,

Following our telephone conversation I can confirm that your vehicle has been confirmed as a Category unselected total loss. The current valuation placed on your vehicle is £ 2000.00.

As discussed if you wish to dispute the valuation placed on your vehicle, I ask that you provide market research examples of vehicles of the same age, mileage, specification and condition. I also ask that you provide any receipts or invoices as discussed.

Kind Regards,

I would do a little research, go back to them with examples of say half a dozen vehicles that are the same age, specification and rough mileage as yours. Give them an average price taken from those 6 examples.

They probably won't take in to account your time and travel to buy another vehicle, but they may up their offer. Their first offer isn't usually the best that they'll do.

I think you have a good basis for recovering your whole loss.

Please check back here tomorrow for a fuller reply

i would do a little research, go back to them with examples of say half a dozen vehicles that are the same age, specification and rough mileage as yours. Give them an average price taken from those 6 examples.

 

They probably won't take in to account your time and travel to buy another vehicle, but they may up their offer. Their first offer isn't usually the best that they'll do.

thanks for your help

regards

steve

i think you have a good basis for recovering your whole loss.

Please check back here tomorrow for a fuller reply

i will do thank you for your help

regards

steve

Please can you tell us how long you had the car, how did you purchase it – from a dealer or from a private seller?

Have you spent any money on repairs or other maintenance? Have you paid for an MOT?

I bought the car privately about a year ago from a private seller for £2000 and got 15 mins down the road and it overheated badly (seller disappeared)

I replaced all the cooling system from start to finish and it turned out to be the cylinder head had 3 cracks

I bought a bare one and built it then fitted it (Will never do it again) finally 4 weeks of hell paid off and it was running sweet as I've replaced too many parts since then to list for example 2 days before prang I spent £500 on wheels.

i did get it mot'd which expires 25/6/18.

regards

steve

Currently going through similar myself.

on a few occasions in the last 50 years when people have caused accident damage to my cars, never ever got enough compensation to replace like for like always had to pay the difference myself, Glasses guide may state one value, but they take in a lot of factors, in fact they use to say/may do now as well 2/3rds expense to repair = write off not economical to repair, so I always said a write off should be replaced like for like if non fault claim - Deaf Ears .

Currently going through similar myself.

then please start a new thread and tells the story and let us follow your developments.

I think you have a good basis for recovering your whole loss.

Please check back here tomorrow for a fuller reply

Before I explain your position to you, you need to understand that it is all going to depend on what you are prepared to do about it all.

If you want it all to be straightforward as possible because you have other things to do in your life and you don’t have the time to get into conflict then the best thing you can do is to get the evidence that has been suggested above and try to get the insurer to up their offer.

Before you decide that this is what you want to do, make sure that you understand fully what your loss will be. You have said that your vehicle is worth a certain value. However, I suspect that you haven’t also factored in the fact that once the insurer pays you the money that you eventually agree upon, you will then have to spend a certain amount of time without vehicle and also a certain amount of time and effort searching for a vehicle which you find that is satisfactory and is of the same quality and reliability is the one that has been damaged.

Additionally, you have now told us that you have carried out quite a lot of important work on the vehicle and this needs to be factored in as well because clearly your investment in terms of time and money have presumably produced a vehicle which is more reliable and is likely to last you longer than another second-hand vehicle which you might buy and which might develop new faults.

You say that there is a suitable vehicle about 50 miles away, but this itself is quite an undertaking because at the very least you have to make a trip up there to look at it and check it out and then to bring it back. When you get there you might find that in fact there is something wrong with the car. Let me say that we always recommend that people try to buy a second-hand vehicle close to home because we have a lot of cases where people have bought cars as far away as 200 or 300 miles only to find within a short time that the car is defective. There is then the huge problem of returning it to the seller.

All of this expense needs to be factored in because that eventually will represent your total loss if you go down the route of accepting the verdict of the insurer that your car is a write-off. You will then manage to agree with the insurer that you should receive a payment of say, £2300, after which you will still be out of pocket by £195 of the car as I understand from you that it was slightly underinsured, plus the cost of finding a new car – which could be anything from £50 to several hundreds of pounds.

I’m setting this all out so that you get a complete perspective as to what has happened to you as a result of this accident.

Please respond back and let me know if there is anything here that I’ve gone wrong or have overestimated.

If you are surprised at this kind of reasoning then you should understand that I’m trying to take fairly cold and highly structured economic view of your position.

We will probably develop this later on so that you understand far more about what you should be claiming in order to put you into the position that you would have been if the accident never happened.

The next thing is that you are presently dealing with the other persons insurer. This is very normal. You have an accident caused by somebody and it is they who is at fault – but there insurer takes over and source of all logistics and eventually pays out to the person whose vehicle has been damaged. This is very nice. However, why does the insurer do this? Do they do it because there are a lovely company and they want to help out their customer? They do it because they realise that if they take control then they can eventually come away with a smaller bill for repairs or replacement then their own customer would manage.

Why does everyone go along with it? They go along with it because this is a culture which has been developed over a long time – 40, 50, 60 years and in effect I can imagine that everybody thinks that this "industry practice" is binding on them. The insured person is certainly happy to go along with it because all of the logistics and stress are taken out of their hands. You would be happy about this if it was your insurer trying to settle an accident which you had caused. However, the victims of accidents do not do so well. There are eventually forced to compromise on the true value of their loss – and as you are already finding out, you believe that you are bound by this in some way and that you have to accept what the insurer says.

This is completely not true.

You have no contact with the insurer and in fact they have nothing to do with you. They are simply there to ensure their own customer against their losses. The only relationship you have here is with the person who has damaged your car. According to what you have told us, the other driver damage your car as a result of their own negligent driving. It immediately becomes that matter of legal duty and the duty is that they have to put you back into the position that you would have been in had the accident never happened. This means that you are entitled to recover all of your losses. It is then the responsibility of the insured driver to recover the money which they have paid out to you from their insurer.

Of course, this properly sounds quite new to you – and it probably would sound quite new to everybody including the driver who damage your car. This won't be news to the insurer. They prefer to take control of the matter and they prefer that everyone believes that this is the way it has to be.

On this basis, – and assuming that you are prepared to take some trouble to recover all of your losses, you should stop dealing with the insurance company and you should deal directly with the person who hit you. You should be writing to that person and demanding that they compensate you for all of your losses and of course, if they refuse then you should be prepared to see them in the County Court. If you did see them in the County Court, it would be a small claim and your chances of success would be much better than 95% and the only question would be as to how much of your losses you could recover. If you assess your losses correctly and methodically and supported by evidence then you will probably get everything you ask for.

It will then be down to the defendant to approach her insurer and asked to be reimbursed all of the money that she has been forced to pay out to you. If she's not able to get that money from them then that is her lookout. It has nothing to do with you.

Of course if you take this approach, the other drivers initial reaction will be one of complete surprise. Just like everyone else, they imagine that there insurer will take direct control and they will imagine that this is the way it has to be. Far from it.

An added benefit of starting to communicate directly with the other driver is that you put pressure on them and that in turn will produce conflict between them and their insurer. This may not be a very nice thing to do – but it is in your interests because the insurer will then find that their usual way of doing things is being disrupted and they are being called properly to account.

I have a sense that I have explained this in a rather involved way and what I'm saying may not be completely clear so please ask me any questions.

The upshot is that I think that you can claim all of your losses but you will have to do it directly from the other driver and you might be forced to threaten and to bring a legal action – although you would surely win this. I certainly think that the insurer is trying to shortchange you – but this is what they do in every case. What I'm suggesting here is an attempt to break this culture which has endured for so very long.

It really is up to you as to what you want to do about it

By the way, I'm not sure if you have told us what the cost of repairing the damage would be. Please would you let us know.

That is probably the figure which you should be suing for.

Bankfodder is right, your relationship is with the other driver (the tortfeasor). The problem with suing them is that their RTA insurer will pick up the claim, as that is precisely what they're indemnifying her for. That contract of insurance has to be in place by virtue of the Road Traffic Act 1988. And then you're back at square one, dealing with the insurer's solicitors again.

Just playing devil's advocate here...

With regards to the work on the car - this is a claim in tort (negligence) so the damage you're seeking must be forseeable - did the other driver know you've spent a colossal amount of money fixing up your car? Almost certainly not. Is the fact that you've spent a colossal amount of money fixing up your car and therefore want to recover all of that forseeable? That's arguable, but I'd say probably not. If you want a more extreme example of forseeability, say you were straight swapping your car for a new Mercedes A class the following day and that deal fell through because of the incident - would you expect the other driver to compensate you for a new Mercedes? No... no one is going to consider that forseeable.

The question that you haven't answered yet is what do you think your car was worth, immediately before the incident? DragonFly1967 suggested you seek out a few examples of similar vehicles. This will give you an idea of the market value of your car (and what it would cost to replace).

Loss of use of the vehicle is mentioned above. Yes that is a legitimate loss, but have you been suffering that loss while you've had a courtesy car? Again, arguably not.

Travel to get your new car - you're not in a position to quantify until you find a replacement vehicle.

You can sue her but you won't get around her insurers that way.

I don't see any problem with the insurer trying to pick up the claim. They won't be able to intervene. The claim will be addressed to the driver and it is the driver who will have to respond to the documents and eventually turn up in court if there is a trial.

The insurer will not be bothered to assist in the defence because it will be too expensive. Don't forget, that the insurer has already basically put their hands up to about £2200. The only thing they will try to save here will be the extra cost of the repairs. We haven't heard what they might be but even if they bring it up to £3000, it is scarcely imaginable that the insurers will want to expose themselves and also risk incurring the costs of instructing lawyers blah blah and whatever is needed to attend court and to defend the matter.

What this needs is for the OP to get two quotes for the repair of the car to put it back into the position it would have been had there been no accident. As long as we're not suddenly talking about £5000 or £6000 here, then I feel that it is fairly straightforward.

Of course it is unhelpful that the OP has not been back to this thread for two days when all sorts of people are taking an interest and giving good advice simply out of a sense of community and goodwill

The driver will pass the claim to the insurer. The insurer will instruct solicitors from their panel. The driver will sign a CSA authorising the solicitors to seek instruction from the insurer, and the insurer to pay the solicitors fees (although most likely at this level they will be fixed or covered on a retainer). The only involvement the driver will have is when a witness statement needs to be filed, although even then, it is not likely they will file one of any great substance as liability is admitted. If it ever proceeded to Court the matter could quite easily be defended on the papers alone.

Well I don't think it will go that way so we will have to see what happens.

Plus for the insurer to leave the driver to their own devices in defending the claim would almost certainly be a breach of the insurance contract. In addition the road traffic act confers an obligation on the insurer to pay the judgment (subject to notice of proceedings being given to the insurer under s152), so it is really not in their interest to leave the driver stranded in this regard.

And also, it makes no sense to shift liability to someone who you don't know has the ability to pay. If you do try and cut the insurer out of the process what you may risk doing is refusing a payment of say £2,200 and securing a judgment of £3,000 against someone who can only pay you £50/month...

But you're right the OP hasn't been back for a while lol... Like we've both said he needs to be clear as to what he thinks his claim is worth...

The insurer will indemnify their customer at least to what they think the vehicle was worth. This means that the customer might be left somewhat out of pocket but certainly not the whole sum.

If the insurer agrees that the car is worth £2200 and the action is for £3000 then at the very worst case the driver will have to find the remaining £800.

Also, don't forget that the question of liability seems to be settled. So the only issue will be over quantum. If the OP can produce the evidence of two or even more quotations for the repairs then the question of quantum will be settled very quickly.

If the insurer agrees that the car is worth £2200 and the action is for £3000 then at the very worst case the driver will have to find the remaining £800.

That's not correct. Because that could potentially leave the OP out of pocket to the tune of £800 if the other driver doesn't have the cash.

Which means that it wouldn't be a valid contract of insurance for the purposes of RTA88 s145.

Agree with the evidence point though. If the OP gets the evidence together, the insurers will pay without court action, or at least up their offer to something reasonable.

Scarcely imagine that the other drivers and have some cash. They have a car at the very least. The status of the contract between the other driver and the insurer is no concern of mine. My main motivation here is to challenge the insurer who is trying to shortchange the OP and leaving them out of pocket and at the same time, of course, they will jack up the next insurance premium for the other driver as well as forcing them to pay some kind of excess in all probability – and also when the OP has eventually to re-insure, he will have to declare a not-at-fault accident and that will certainly count as a mark towards him there may be even increase his own premium.

The Op paid £2k for what they believed was fair value fair value for the vehicle (and assumed it was in good working order) over a year ago.

The tpi have offered the same amount, sounds like a reasonable approach to me, the vehicle is a year older and now has more on the clock.

The tpi have already said they will consider other valuations and receipts, again that is a fair comment.

The Op paid £2k for what they believed was fair value fair value for the vehicle (and assumed it was in good working order) over a year ago.

 

The tpi have offered the same amount, sounds like a reasonable approach to me, the vehicle is a year older and now has more on the clock.

 

The tpi have already said they will consider other valuations and receipts, again that is a fair comment.

I completely missed that the OP only paid £2k for his car in the first place...

If he gets any more for the car than he paid for it, despite the car having had a major issue and repair together with a year of depreciation, it's a good result.

Sorry but I have to disagree with this very strongly.

You might as well say that if he'd been given the car as a birthday present then if the car is written off by somebody else is not entitled to any compensation because he is not able to say that he suffered a loss.

If you manage to get himself a good bargain then he should still be entitled to recover the actual value of the car given all the circumstances. If he happens to fit it out with a new engine or a lot of recent work on it so that he has improved it then he should also recover the value of the improvements.

I don't disagree that he's entitled to recover the actual value of the car. I just don't think he's being shortchanged.

However he needs to come up with those examples of similar vehicles and/or the repair quotes so he can be sure of the position.

Blow me ... we're almost in agreement.