Writing off vehicles....

[Chris220SDi]

Guys,

Just read a post on one of my regular forums about a guys Rover 400 being hit while stationary. Now as you'll probably understand the value of a Rover 400 is quite low - bargain for some - cheap for others.

The thread can be found Here (http://www.rovertech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13823).

Now something has just occured to me. Isnt it so very unfair, that if you are in no way at fault, that there is the chance that someone could decide that your car is not worth repairing? I mean who the f**k (and please excuse the bad language, but this is how strongly I feel about this point) has the right to give you money instead of repairing your pride and joy?

I mean come on - is it me or isnt this so damn unfair, and has no point to it what so ever? :x

This point is especially compounded with the stupidly high cost of labour these days. Regulars on ehre might remember my little beasty was hit in the side by a car door at the start of the year.

It would have cost £1200 to repair, no, it did cost that to e repaired - but I can garuntee I'd have been able to get it done for £500 including parts, and a better job - but i needed a hire car.

My cars market value is only £2500 though so I cant imaging this happenning just yet. The fact that it could happen really ticks me off.

Any of you insurance guys have an opinion about this? I'm not having a go at you - I'm sure you're simply the minions having to followw rules set by your employers.

[wazza]

Insurance companies dont care about your car, they only care about what money they have to pay out, if they write your car off and pay you out you may be able to buy the car off them and repair it yourself anyway, so its just a money thing.

[Mice_Elf]

Agreed. If cars are written off as Class C, then it's USUALLY worth buying the salvage rights off them and repairing your car yourself. I did this with my last ZX. It had minor bumper damage and was quoted an absolute fortune to repair, so they wrote it off as Class C. I bought it back, bought the parts from a salvage yard / contacts on the Zed forum and repaired it at less than half what was quoted.

It's a way of the Insurance company saving money on repairing your car. If they repair it, it could cost a fortune...if YOU repair it, they've paid a set amount and your car will need to go through an MOT to confirm it's road-worthiness again before they will insure it.

Don't forget that this can only be done with Class C write offs. Class B means that the car must be broken, but bits can be used as spares and Class A means the car must be destroyed (usually after fire damage).

[russ]

Morning,
Fair point, we can seem harsh, it is partly as wazza says it`s a cash thing.

Say your car is worth 4000 and it can be repaired for 4500. The insurance co will say it`s a write off because you should be able to go out and buy the same car on the market (hence market price) for the 4000. Why would they pay an extra 500 to put a car back on the road.

Also believe it or not there is also a safety aspect that we consider. If it`s an old car then sometimes it`s better to have it off the road rather than repair it and put it back on. Harsh yes but true, would an old car be better repaired than scrapped? especially if it`s a rather large smack.

The problem with cars is that they do have an emotional attachment to a lot of people, this is where a lot of the problems arise from.

With regards to salvage it`s not so easy to get the cars back these days. The goverment changed the legislation last year to include tougher restrictions to allow "written off" vehicles back onto the road and insurers are more and more not allowing cars to be bought back off them.

Also with regards to catagories if it`s a B you won`t get it back for spares unless you are a registered salvage dealer, same goes for A.

Understand your feelings Chris but it`s only going to get worse i`m afraid :(

As for who has the right, i`m afraid it`s in your policy booklet, it allows the insurance co to repair, reistate or pay cash for the damage.

Russ

[Mice_Elf]

Also with regards to catagories if it`s a B you won`t get it back for spares unless you are a registered salvage dealer, same goes for A.

Has this changed since March / April of last year? My red ZX was written off as Class B and we bought it back for parts. Insurance company were very good and didn't even quibble us buying it back off them even thought we're private and not a salvage company by any means.

They even gave me above market value for the car as their first quote was laughably low, so I contacted them directly and explained why it was worth more. :)

[russ]

You were pretty lucky Mice, it all changed around June last year. Sounds like you got a good deal :)

Of course it took all the companies a few months to decide what they were going to do with the new legislation ( the industry as a whole is very very bad at implementing new legistlation) but it seems to have filtered through to most now.

I did manage to get one of my clients vehicles back the other week but that was with the agreement that their engineer was involved in the repair process.

Basically it went, vehicle must go to a DVLA approved garage who looks at it and agrees whether you can repair it or not, then the vehicle needs to go to an approved garage capable of the repair and then finally it needs to go back to the DVLA garage to confirm that the vehicle is now roadworthy and finally inspected by the insurance company and re MOT`d before it is allowed back on the road and insured.

Bit of a hassle and it all has to be done at your cost. Needless to say most people don`t bother these days, that is if the insurance company will even let you have the savage anyway.

If it hadn`t been a race prepared BMW i don`t think even my client would have bothered.

Again other companies will deal it in other ways but this is just an example of what i came across. I would point out that this is goverment legistlation and not something we thought of to annoy everyone.

Russ

[Turbo_Steve]

The trick is to make sure your car is insured...with ALL mods for the value to replace it, not the market value. The insurance company WILL quibble this on payment, but as you have insured it with every single thing you have had done, the you have good grounds to argue the value it is insured for, and not the value they think it SHOULD have been insured for.

[russ]

What makes me laugh is the way people always tend to have ways of dropping themselves in the cr@p when they are usually going to get away with it.

The funniest was someone who was giving a friend of mine a lot of grief, swearing down the phone and calling about 8 times a day. A real pain in the rear.

We raised the cheque for his car and it was sitting on my mates desk waiting to go into the post.

Then a letter arrived from him complaining about the settlement figure and enclosing a photo to prove that we should pay him more.

The photo showed his vehicle sat in a field with all the light ablaze (a real posey shot) clearly showing all the spoilers he had fitted along with his alloys and painted windows.

Best laugh my mate had for ages was that photo. What happened ? well he ripped his cheque up and denied his claim.

Another reason for telling your insurance company about any mods.

Russ

[Mice_Elf]

PMSL! Classic! :D

You must have a glut of insurance claim stories to tell, Russ - why not stick a few in Locker Room? :)

[Turboderv]

While were on the subject :)

I think that it is unfair to be paying a high insurance for a car which is expensive to repair when the ins co reserve the right to any equivallent part.

This happened to me with a volvo 850 which someone drove into when it was parked, the door needed changing.

I was paying a high premium for the car based on it being relatively powerful and expensive for parts.

So, it is not fair that the insurance company where able to fit the cheapest tackyest door they could find, if they only fit cheap parts I should have cheaper insurance IMO.

The car was insured as a volvo built by volvo with volvo parts mostly made in belgium. So IMO the insurance co should be bound to fit volvo parts not some cheapo indian sourced or whatever parts grrrr :twisted:

Maybe Russ you are able to shed some light on this to help me understand it !!!

Also, the SIPS on the volvo is designed in such away that the side of the car reacts to a side impact in a certain way, would the cheapo light door be as tough as the volvo one ??

It would be interesting to have an insight into the insurance world to see why all the polices i have seen have this clause in them :)

[Mice_Elf]

TurboDerv - I've made you your own thread with this in. :)

[Turboderv]

oops ! just noticed thanks :D

[Chris220SDi]

Say your car is worth 4000 and it can be repaired for 4500. The insurance co will say it`s a write off because you should be able to go out and buy the same car on the market (hence market price) for the 4000. Why would they pay an extra 500 to put a car back on the road.

Now that makes sense, but thats the idea behind it. Thing is though, whats stopping the insurance company from scouring the place for a dire example of your car, something which is not in the same condition by any means, and trying to palm you off with the price for that. Its their word against yours, and as has been said - its down to money so they only care about the price...


With regards to salvage it`s not so easy to get the cars back these days. The goverment changed the legislation last year to include tougher restrictions to allow "written off" vehicles back onto the road and insurers are more and more not allowing cars to be bought back off them.

Also with regards to catagories if it`s a B you won`t get it back for spares unless you are a registered salvage dealer, same goes for A.


Yes but its my car. All the Gucci little bits, they wont add to the value on the car, mods never do, but they wil to a scrap dealer, and they will to me if I decide to sell the bits, but its my car, so in fact I have every right to strip the car bare. Its mine. Otherwise what am I paying my premium for? The prmium is so they can afford to give me money for a new car, trying to offset this payout by taking the owners car and trying to sell it for bits, is theft. :x

...not the exact vein of the original thread but a point I'd like to make anyway. Its my thread... <tongue in cheek>

[russ]

Ok, fair point, however the thread is "written" (lame i know) off so i`m buying it off you for £0.00000001 so it now belongs to me. You can buy it back form me as salvage if you want for £1,000,000 :)

Seriously though, nothing stops us from scouring the country for a bad version of your car apart from we do actually want to settle fairly. We use a value guide called glasses and don`t usually bother searching for values elsewhere at all. This guide gives the market value of your car and we can adjust it depending on what bits and bobs, and mileage, you have.

Believe me i have loads of better things to do rather than invite an argument from a client, valuation disputes are a pain in the rear and take ages to sort out.

There is nothing stopping people disputing the value we place, however we do ask people to prove the value they are asking, ususally by sending us adverts in local press for a car the same as theirs or prints from autotrader. If they provide proof of the same vehicle at the higer price then we pay it. Generally though i usually only have a dispute about once every 4-5 weeks, and bearing in mind how many we settle that`s not bad.

Mods, depending on what they are, do add value, we pay more for alloys, exhausts and even sometimes for bodykits ( on agreed value claims) again it`s down to the client/customer to prove their claim. Of course if it`s a lame mod ( blue washer jets) they we just have a good laugh about how sad they are and settle anyway ;)

99% of the time it`s down to someone not being able to prove their claim to us, if they can`t prove it we don`t pay it, would you ?

Chris, just for an experiment. What`s the year and mileage of your rover ? I`ll give you a price i would settle when i get back to work monday :-)

[Chris220SDi]

Russ,

Thanks for your reply mate - if only all Insurance peeps were like you. :)

My Rover is a P Reg 220 SDi with 90k on the clock. No rust, maintained irrespective of cost.

Do you want mods too?

Thanks for having a look, it'd be quite interesting :)

[russ]

Russ,

Thanks for your reply mate - if only all Insurance peeps were like you. :)


awwww 8) i`ll send that to some of my clients ;)

Although you may not like me after this :) i`m not going to quote on mods as it`s pretty subjective from ins co to ins co, but the car is..........

96 on a P reg Glass retail £2500 - £650 for mileage = £1850
97 on a P reg Glass retail £2625 - £825 for mileage = £1800

Cos i don`t like valuation disputes I always look around to see what that particular vehicle is being sold for in the "actual" market and i found

97 R £1900, 98 R on £2499 and 98 S £2995. only 3 availiable on autotrader.

So i`d probably offer you either £1850 or £1800 depending on the year and less the policy excess.

Of course as i said you may get extra for the declared mods but that would depend on your policy.

Was that what you were expecting ?

Russ

Oh and just to back myself up this is purely based on information availiable today. This could change tomorrow :)

[Chris220SDi]

Although you may not like me after this :) i`m not going to quote on mods as it`s pretty subjective from ins co to ins co, but the car is..........

96 on a P reg Glass retail £2500 - £650 for mileage = £1850
97 on a P reg Glass retail £2625 - £825 for mileage = £1800

Cos i don`t like valuation disputes I always look around to see what that particular vehicle is being sold for in the "actual" market and i found

97 R £1900, 98 R on £2499 and 98 S £2995. only 3 availiable on autotrader.



Russ,

Thats about what i was expecting to be honest - and dont worry, you havnt dropped in my opinions - you seem a fair chap.

I've not really been looking recently, but I hope that despite my cars high mileage, that if I did write this one off, that the ones available were in as good a conditon as mine.

To be honest though, if I did write it off, I'd simply be using the funds to get myself a Mk3 200 shell to start a new project. A beastly project that scoob drivers would be wary of ;)

I just hope that I wont be in that situation too seen. :)

Thanks though, proved interesting :)

[Turboderv]

A few years ago my mate had an old cav (B reg LOL! yeah, it was old then too haha)

Anyway, he bought it for £650 and spent over 2k on mods, respray, lowered, alloys and stuff including an interior from a better spec'd model.

He didn't tell his ins co any of this :| for some reason best known to him.

He had a car to a state he was happy with and was planning on doing some mad engine mods next but the car was nicked from under his bedroom window :(

The car was never found and the ins co offered him £900 for it which i thought was good exluding the mods. He had a chat with them to tell them about the mods and they said that if he sent them receipts for non performance enhancing mods they would reconsider their offer.

He did that and they increased their offer to £1200 ! so he was pleased with that considering he hadn't decleared anything.

Just another story for you all LOL!