Car insurance company ridiculously low offer, what are my options?

[WeAreEternal]

We had an accident, the only damage to the car is cosmetic but the insurance company said it was an uneconomical repair and lodged it as a category N.

We got a quote for a repare just under £3k, but the insurance company refused it.
That said they will not pay anything to have it fixed and will only write it off.

Their first offer was £4k and we could buy the car back for £1k.

The car is worth at least £6.5k, probably more since it had a lot done to it in the last year (new tires, new roof, New callipers, etc)

We argued, showed them evidence that similar cars were selling/sold for £6-£8k but they said it was irrelevant.
The parkers valuation for the car it £6-7k. They said that is also irrelevant.

The insurance increased their offer to £4.5k but said that’s they final offer.

The car was immaculate, it was DH’s baby and he took very good care of it.
There is no way we could replace it for £4.5k, there is just no chance.

The problem is that DH’s car is rare, there are less than 450 of it in the uk and less that 200 of his year.
His also had certain features that makes it a very desirable version of his model.
He’s seen similar cars sold for up to £9k in the past year.
And he has been approached several times and offered silly money to sell it.

We believe the insurance company are basing their quote on the standard data, and if the car was a Ford Fiesta I could see their argument, but since their are 74,000 Ford Fiestas in the uk and less than 450 of this car I think it deserves further consideration, but the insurance company disagreed.

DH is about to start a complaint to the financial ombudsman, it seems like we have no options.

Has anyone else been in this situation?

Unless I'm missing something, can't you take their offer, buy it back for the £1000 then get it repaired using the payout?

Accept £4500 buy it back for £1000. Repair it for £3000 as per quote and you are £500 up! Don't really see the issue.

If you do buy it back and repair it it will still show up as an insurance write off and subsequently be worth less, still makes sense to do it if it really is his baby and he's not worried about resale value.

The buy back price will increase with the increased offer and the excess is £500 so their offer would leave us out of pocket.

My argument is why should we take an insurance pay off that is thousands less than the value of the car?
Surely the point is that we should be able to take a pay off and buy another car, how could we possibly do that when they are only offering us £4.5k but the cars are selling for £6k and up?

Yes if we take their offer we will be able to buy back the car and fix it and only be a bit out of pocket, but with a write off on it’s book, as Sall said, it will be virtually worthless.
Writing it off will knock thousands off the value, so we will be further out of pocket in the long run.
The insurance payout should reflect this.

Basically we are just being massively screwed by the insurance company, I genuinely wish we’d never logged the accident and just paid for the repairs ourselves, we would have been better off.

I had this exact situation. Did everything you did (evidence of sales, scarcity of similar cars) and whilst they did increase their offer it wasn't enough to buy the exact same car. I even spoke to their valued and said I would assign the money to him and he could use it to find me the car he was saying I could buy with his offer quoting the insurance policy said I would be reimbursed for the cost of the same car.

It got me nowhere - I needed a car for work and they strung it along to the end of the period for which they'd provide a courtesy car. They knew they had be over a barrell. I couldn't afford to pay for a courtesy car whilst taking the claim to the Ombudsman.

It really was a frustrating situation.

There’s an ombudsman. You could try there?

Yes we have already sent a complaint to the financial ombudsman.

Just to prove how ridiculous their offer is, we just received a quote from webuyanycar.com for the car in its current state, with the damage and the category N.
They will buy the car for £5,500.

Surely that proves that their offer is massively under what it should be, if a company that makes it business buying cars below market value and selling them on will pay more than their offer for the damaged car how are we supposed to buy an a new one for £4500!
That’s why I’m so annoyed.

I had something similar. I pointed out that as they had taken my premiums for £x value, then that, less excess, was what I had insured for. If they used my valuation for the car,then that's what they should pay. They raised the offer somewhat.

Why wouldn't you take the 4k, but it back and sell to wbac for 5,500 then? You would then have 8,500 to buy a new one ....