Yep, life's a gamble!

This is very valid, and its something that concerns me at the moment.

My MB is 18 yars old, but its in remarkable condition, i've ''invested'' around £2k on it this year alone in remedial and ongoing maintenance work.

Similar cars for sale in equivalent condition and mileage are up for sale @ around the £5/6k mark, whilst chavved up wrecks with higher mileage go for around £1500 to £2k.

I use it as my daily driver, i could i suppose insure it on a classic policy with agreed value but would lose NCB.

No doubt if a third party hit it i would have a heck of a job to realise its true value, or indeed get it repaired if damage over a grand, and the slightest tap would be a grand.

Not sure what to do to be honest, any suggestions?

When i WAS insured with NFU, (the best insurer there is IMO but their prices have risen sharply) SWMBO wrote my old Landcruiser off, don't ask..;), their first offer which i accepted was for £1k more than the vehicle was worth...the nice lady at the local office read the engineers report out to me, he'd offered the high price because of the exceptional pre accident condition with evidence of high maintenance and the offer reflected that.

It depends who is liable. If it is your insurer, then it will be as per their T&Cs.

If the third party is liable, you should be able to claim reasonable consequential losses such as these but you would have to be claiming directly from the third party, not going through your own insurance and you may be better off using a claims agent such as SytnerDrive if you don't feel confident with legal paperwork.

Liability covers ALL reasonable losses - the third party insurer will undoubtedly try to minimise their costs - but it's the driver that's liable in law.

Only your own insurer can limit claims to market value, as that's a simple matter of contract.

Edited by RT on 24/01/2014 at 19:57

May I respectfully draw your attention to this thread, which I have just commented on:

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=103250

I fought like mad over a low offer and did eventually get justice, and an apology. But as for the repair/maintenance work, I think you will be lucky to see a penny of that back.