The car a 2001 ford puma was parked up outside the house and was driven into by a hired taxi. Damage was front bumper grill cross member and aircon rad. They have come back saying the car is a write-off only giving a value of £1400 saying that’s the cheapest they found which is a joke as the car will easily sell for £2500-£3000.
What in the way of options have I got as I think I can get an independent assessor to view the car. I’ll be getting 4 print outs from eBay and autotrader showing the resale value.
that’s all I did with my car, just found a load of ads on tvt and ebay and sent them in. They soon upped the figure to what I paid for the car when I bought it the previous year.
Regardless of the value you hold on your vehicle, an insurance company will always estimate a value at a much lower level. This is why new car owners are recommended to take our what is called, ‘Gap Insurance’ to cover the amount between what you get from the insurance company and what you paid for it.
In your case the same applies. The insurance company have a very complicated system that works out the value for your car. In most cases they won’t even look at it. Its frustrating but they hold all the cards so you won’t force them to change their minds.
A write off is given if they view the damage to the car out ways the value of it. As an example… They value the car as £1500 but the cost of new parts with labour, or, the cost to repair those parts and labour, is £1670. They will write the car off and give you the amount for the value of it, minus any costs. Some actually work out the final value after costs have been deducted so what you see is what you get…say £1500, whereas some will say its actually worth £1600 but then you’ll get £1500 after costs have been removed. They all do things differently.
You have a choice here. You can accept the write off and take the money or ask for a buy back option. This means you pay them out of the final value amount to buy the car back. This is a percentage of the value, so can be 10% for example. They then deduct this amount, give you whats left along with the car. You can then do the repairs yourself at a much lower cost to you.
You will have to have the vehicle MOT’d again and a VIC check done. The reason for this, is because the insurance company will update the HPI and MIAFTR databases to say the vehicle has been written off. These are usually only a Cat C or Cat D though so the car can go back on the road after its been deemed safe by the VIC assessor and received an MOT. A Cat A means the car must be crushed when intact, where as a Cat B means the parts can be removed and sold and the body and chassis is then crushed.
Dont accept their first, second and maybe third offers
I assume its not your insurance paying out so dont accept a crap offer
When my bike was written off, I told the assessor that I was going to hang up and I didnt want him to call me back until he had a sensible offer for me. I pointed out that the third party had accepted liability so it wasnt going to cost my insurance in the end so they shouldnt be trying to screw over their own customers.
He called back about 6 hours later and offered considerably more…in fact more than I had paid because I made him look at ebay/car ads to see what it would cost me to replace.
Obviously its different if your own company are paying out eg on a theft as then it depends what value you declared.
Good luck
