3rd Party Insurers offer poor Compensation

[oldbuffer46]

Hi,

Newbie here, so if I'm on the wrong forum please let me know.

My daughter recently had an accident whereby someone ran into the back of her vehicle whilst stationary. (no argument about fault!)

Unfortunately the damage to her vehicle was severe enough for the assessors, unsurprisingly, to consider it an insurance write-off.

The third party insurers have offered her the Glass's Guide trade value for the vehicle  which falls significantly short of the cost for a like-for-like replacement - no surprise there either.

In order to replace the vehicle, the difference in costs is around £1k. Since we mortals are only permitted to deal in retail prices, this all seems very unfair on every count particularly  since my daughter was completely without fault, (ascertained during initial claim process) and clearly had no control over the events.

She has rejected the original offer, and has submitted documentary evidence by way of motor advertisements to show the current costs of like-for-like replacement vehicles and we are awaiting the third party insurers response.

Can you please advise if she has any rights at all to be able to claim the shortfall if the insurers refuse to budge on their original offer. What also will add insult to injury is that we are virtually certain that her vehicle will  be repaired and put back on the  road.

She was offered the option of purchasing her vehicle and use the cash for the "write-off" towards its repair. This would have put her even more out of pocket.  I sincerely believe that in a situation like this, it should cost her absolutely nothing to replace her vehicle with a similar one in terms of make, model, age and mileage.

 

thanks

 

PT.

 

 

 

 

[unclebulgaria67]

Threatening County Court claim against third party driver by writing to third party usually helps. Suggesting third party contacts their Insurers to ask why they are offering below replacement value 

 

And follow up if needed by issuing Court claim against third party driver.

 

Be aware Insurers do not pay advertised prices. They expect people to negotiate a discount, say at least 5%.

[BankFodder]

try to get two independent quotations for the replacement value of the vehicle plus lots of other evidence such as advertisements etc for an equivalent vehicle.

 

In your letter to the third party as advised above enclose the quotes.

 

if you need to bring a county court claim we will help you and on the basis of what you have said, your chances of success are excellent

[oldbuffer46]

Thanks for the information so far - very helpful. FYI we have already submitted at least four ads to her insurers. To be clear, the one advert that is almost identical to her existing vehicle (including mileage)

is about £600.00 more than the offer. The others have lower mileage but are around £1k more. (Essentially  the third party insurers are offering just shy of £4k and replacements are around the £5k mark. For someone on a limited budget, this is not insignificant).  It is almost impossible to get an exact match in all respects. And by the time she can get around to buying another one, these ads will almost certainly be gone. However, your suggestion re contacting the third party directly does look promising.

But I must ask - worst case scenario, what happens if the case ends up in County Court and we lose?

 

PT

[Manxman in exile]

Don't forget that used cars (like houses) are not usually sold for their advertised prices.  It can be indicative to see what advertised prices are, but ask yourself the question:  "Would I be happy to buy that car at that price, or would I want to knock £100/£500/£750 off the asking price?"  Or more pertinently ask: "What would I be happy to have paid to buy my daughter's car?"  Because basically, that's what you are asking the insurer to do.

 

Out of interest, are you still able to get a quote from somewhere like We Buy Any Car?  If their quote is more than the third party insurer is offering then that would suggest to me that the insurance offer is too low.

 

I thought there was a sticky on here that linked to FSO guidance or a FSO decision as to how write-offs should be valued?  Maybe I'm wrong.  Personally, I would not want to sue the insurer unless I was very confident of a win.***

 

Just to add, we've had two cars written off in the past fifteen years.  We carried out extensive research on used car prices (adverts and trade guides) ready to do battle with the insurers.  But on both occasions the offers we got were comfortably within what we had already decided was an acceptable range - although we did squeeze another 250 out of the first one just for the fun of it.

 

 

*** EDIT:  No harm in trying to haggle though.  As I say we successfully haggled on our first write off even though their offer was acceptable to us.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Manxman in exile

[unclebulgaria67]

If you lost, then you would lose the claim fee.  If the accident was as described, plus they have admitted liability by offering settlement, then it is just an argument about the loss value suffered. 

 

Just be realistic about the the amount. They won't pay the £5000 shown in adverts.  Car dealers are offering substantial discounts at the moment.