Car written off, insurance offering too little to replace - anyone knowledgeable aronud?

[PacificState]

DP and I were in a collision a week ago -- thankfully everyone concerned was fine but our lovely car was written off.

The other party has admitted fault.

We're now at the stage of looking at the cost for replacing our car - and our insurer, Admiral, is offering around £2k below the price of the exact replacements we can find on AutoTrader. Even more confusingly, Admiral says (and has sent us the PDF to prove it) that the £2k-under price is one they've gotten from Admiral's 'market value' tool.

I just don't know where this number comes from -- it doesn't bear any relation to what we're seeing on AutoTrader.

Admiral is also saying there's 'no haggling' about the amount they're offering us, because 'the regulations have changed' and 'we don't do that any more'.

If anyone knows more about car insurance than I do I'd be really grateful for some insight - basically, is it worth pushing for more or do we just take it on the chin (and never go with Admiral again, obviously).

Thank you!

The insurance policy is there to put you back into a similar position you were in before the accident occurred. If you haven't already, send them screenshots of an exact replica of the car written off, age, colour, mileage at time of incident. Tell them their obligation is to put back into the same position. If they won't negotiate then tell them, you want to raise a complaint. They then have a standard time to investigate your complaint, they then have to issue a final letter, saying if they uphold your complaint. If they still dont increase offer, you can refer them to the Financial Ombudsman, who will investigate your complaint, Admiral are charged a fee by the Financial Ombudsman to investigate, you aren't charged. But you have to go down Admirals complaint procedure first and they have to issue final letter, before FO will get involved. (I'm an ex motor claims manager). Good luck.

well, to one other!

Don't expect the insurers to be pleasant to deal with on this OP. When my car was written off by a tree falling on it - it was parked at the time and every panel was dented - we had a right row with the insurance company's loss adjuster. We needed to clear the finance and he was trying to give us way under that. DP found three examples of the same age, model, mileage car for sale for more and I think the Glass's guide prices and argued the toss with the guy. He did not want to back down and luckily DP has industry experience so was able to back the guy into a corner as he couldn't justify his lower valuation.

This happened to my dad. Someone drove into him. Wanted to write car off. Dad was upset as the offer was way lower. In the end he found a garage to repair it, insurance amount from pay off covered it.

Thank you. We've just had the loss adjuster on the phone, arguing (saying he can see that all the examples on AutoTrader are at least £2k more, but that Autotrader's average price is still what it is, ie completely unrelated to what's on the market...) He asked us to confirm that we wanted to go ahead with the complaint and we said yes, so that's where we're at.

They're also saying they're going to pay us the initial offer 'anyway', so I need to quickly establish whether accepting that payment is going to screw us when it comes to taking the complaint to the ombudsman.

Plus for anyone still following the 'other insurer' subplot: apparently we have to ask the 'other side' of Admiral's business for those details, so we'll do that tomorrow too. (The lady who caused the crash was too shaken up to remember her details, so we've never had them.)

so unfortunately this will likely impact your premiums

If we claim on ours? Would they not be impacted if we claimed on hers? (In my experience insurers seem to put a rocket under your premiums whatever happens)

I'm with admiral - there is a price for the car in the paperwork when you agree to the insurance is there not?

Even if the other driver is at fault, it will affect your premiums.

Our car was written off 5 years ago, as the person behind was texting and rear ended us at 80mph. Husband damaged hand and needed a year of physio, driver of other vehicle went to prison as it wasn't his first driving offence.

Our insurance premium, despite the crash being claimed from the other driver, went from 700 to 1900 for the first year, then 1700, then 1500 until the crash dropped off our history.

We was with Diamond at the time (same as Admiral I think?) and we ended up with £4500 for a car we had bought for £8000 three months prior - they wanted to give us £3000! Was an absolute headache so I really feel for you, Op!

so….

if your insurer wasn’t involved and all via the third party…. then no claim on their systems set up

fact that they are involved means a claim has been set up on their system/ms. This will be logged as “no fault” but sadly it will impact premiums nonetheless

I'm pretty sure we insured it at what we paid for it (ie £4k more than we're being offered) but I'll get DP to check

Oh yikes that sounds terrifying. Hope you're OK now.

Also, smaller yikes at what this will do to our budget...

So - too late for us to make much of a difference? But in future, don't let anyone leave until we have the telephone number of the other party, and don't tell our insurance first? (That seems to be the opposite of what you're told to do! But I'm learning that nothing means anything in this business, except that the insurance company always wins)

@PacificState even non fault claims are rated on so your premiums will increase

Apparently if you've had a non fault accident you're statistically more likely to go on and have fault accident (so they say)

unfortunately

a claim has been set up

Blimey, that’s awful. You can see why some people say they have whiplash to bump their eventual/overall payout up if they don’t get a fair settlement 🤷‍♀️

You have to declare any accidents/claims regardless of whether you claim on your insurance or the other party's. So no advantage to going through the other company afaik

I'm beginning to think insurance companies say absolutely anything that suits their case, whether or not it's remotely related to the truth. They'd argue that I was technically a giraffe if they thought it would save them money.

Funnily enough I did think (while the blood was pouring from what thankfully turned out to be a minor head wound) whether I should have a quick Google for whiplash symptoms, but then I thought 'no don't be a fucking dick, be grateful you're alive'. More fool me eh?

that how I understand insurers look at it too. But it’s not necessarily certain that your premium will increase though, so not all is lost. My husband wrote off an almost brand new car (insured by LV) and after they’d paid out the full list price we bought another new car, which was actually considerably more expensive, and the premium was unchanged! But, I have always found LV very reasonable to deal with, which is worth much more than them being the cheapest at the end of the day.

Yes, I've read a lot of good stuff about LV on here in the last few days - I think we'll go with them next (after checking the policy very carefully)

You need to have it recorded that you don't accept the offer as final and settled and that you will escalate to the FOS, once you receive fi al response to your complaint.

They're also saying they're going to pay us the initial offer 'anyway', so I need to quickly establish whether accepting that payment is going to screw us when it comes to taking the complaint to the ombudsman.

This is what happened to us. I asked for the case to be escalated and it took maybe another week or two of me patiently and doggedly sending emails pointing out why the offer was wrong to get the higher offer (almost 1.5 times the initial offer). They sent a cheque and then a further cheque which took us up to what I thought was a fair valuation. I don't think accepting the cheque makes any difference as long as you put it in writing that you don't think this is a fair valuation and are expecting x amount more.

Thanks both. I will ask for an email address to send that wording to (they seem very reluctant to give an email address…) I’ve had a look online and the ombudsman seems to have stated in plain terms that accepting an interim payment doesn’t affect your case, but I’d be happier putting a statement in writing to them.

Yes recent insurance price hikes, are supposedly because of higher repair costs & increases in car 2nd hand prices etc yet when it comes to paying out, they use the old price structures....

Plus the regulators always seem to work hand in glove with the industry they "regulate"