Firstly, my car isn't in the list, so I can't put it in the thread title! It's a 1978 2.0 Triumph Dolomite Sprint. Rover was the closest I can get!
My car was rear-ended in early October 2008. Not my fault, someone forgot to stop and hit me when I was stationary in traffic.
Being a classic car, and probably one of the best examples of it's type in the UK, the insurance company asked me to get two quotes to repair the damage as I requested that the car was sent to a classic specialist.
Fast-forward a little bit...
I called the insurance company on Thursday asking for a progress report - they told me that my car had been classed a Cat-C write-off and they had sent me a cheque for £1,700! I contested this value as the car is worth around £4,500, but was shocked to hear that since they have already deemed my car a write-off, they now cannot 'undo' this status! It seems my car will be written of no matter what it's value.
My arguement is that if they had adhered to the correct valuation from the very beginning then my car would NOT have been written off. Because they offered me a low (and insulting!) valuation, my car never stood a chance of being repaired.
From the very beginning I have sent documentation to prove this value the along with copies of classified adverts of similar cars for sale. The insurance company lost these THREE times since October, and on calling them today appears they have lost them again.
The vehicle inspector they sent to look at my car spent about 2 minutes looking at it before driving off - he didn't even open the boot to check the damage inside.
Also, earlier in the year my car was involved in another accident to the side - this was agreed and repaired by another insurnance company. The bill for repair was £1000 more than the one that declares my car a write off.
I am completely stuck in what to do now. Can anyone please advise?
Thanks in advance!
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 23/12/2008 at 00:13
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i've had similar a while back, also with a Triumph, albeit a mk1 2000, when someone came out of a side turning and side swiped me
the angle i played was thus:
I own the car, I choose what happens with it. I choose in fact whether or not I even claim on the insurance and if i didn't there would be no question of it being written off. I advised them that the car WOULD be repaired and that I was NOT willing for it to be 'written off' as it was perfectly repairable. As another party was responsible, then it was up to my insurance co. to act on my behalf to claim the repairs back from the 3rd party and put me back in the position I was before the accident, NOT to obstruct me and come out with a load of waffle and usual practices that suited them not me.
You will have to be patient, get through to managers not the person who first answers the phone..but the bottom line is you've paid for insurance cover, you choose what you do with your car...and in this case it is a thorough repair with a specialist. It is not for the insurance co. to have you conform with their ideals, they are there to provide a service to you. Ultimately if they didn't agree it would be Small Claims Court etc, but it won't come to that.
If you wish to, ask one of the Mods to forward an e-mail to me and i'll correspond in more detail. It took a battle, but I completely got my own way in the end and more importantly the car is not on any database as having been written off.
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A common ploy is to send a (small) cheque and close the file then say they can't do any more.
When Mrs S's MR2 was written off in similar circumstances this is what happened. However by sending in copies of sale adverts for similar vehicles I was able to get an additional amount authorised. Probably best not to cash the original cheque or you may be deemed to have accepted the offer.
Try to get as much cash as possible, then buy the car as salvage & have it repaired youself (My P4 was written off many years ago for a dent in the roof and of course is still going well!)
However the important point raised by this is that all owners of classic vehicles should have agreed value insurance. It can be a bit of a hassle to get it but will avoid exactly this senario of an undervaluation.
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See HJ's FAQ:-
www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=33
If the accident is someone else's fault you should be claiming of their insurance, not yours, that way the car can't be written off.
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One other thing... did you have "Classic Car" Insurance? If you did you should have agreed a value with the Insurance Company when you took it out, depending on the value of the car they may have asked for an independant valuation, or at least a form filled out by you with full details of the condition of the car... at least thats whats happened when I took out my insurance with a well known classics insurer recently...
Thats should mean you get the agreed value or near if claiming.
If it was just "ordinary" car insurance then you might struggle as they'd just regard it as an old banger.
Edited by b308 on 23/12/2008 at 08:43
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Not 100% clear if you are claiming off your own policy or the 3rd party. Is you own policy an agreed value, if so is it for £4500?
David
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Guy on another site had an original BMW M3. It got written off and he was offered £850. After a good deal of messing around, he eventually got £9000 (or thereabouts).
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>The insurance company lost these THREE times ..
Of course they didn't. This is one of the first standard ploys they use to get more time, and erode a claimant's resolve. If important papers are lost as often as that they wouldn't be in business. Make some strong remarks about the Insurance Ombudsman, and persevere - they should cough up in the end.
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With any classic car you should obtain a professional valuation, and then get this figure agreed with the insurance company.
In the event of a car being written-off you will receive this figure minus any policy excess - mine includes being given the salvage at no cost.
MVP
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Was the value of the car agreed at the time the insurance was taken out? it would no doubt involve inspections and possibly mileage limits too.
If so, persevere. If not, then you dont have much hope.
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The agreed value issue is redundant unless you are claiming from the insurers that agreed that value.
The third party (through his insurers) has to put you in the position you were in before the accident. You therefore have to show that the car was worth £4500, and that you will have to spend that amount to replace it. The agreed value may help support that, but the third party ins co may need (and expect) other evidence. The owners club's classifieds may be a place to start, for example.
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How does it compare to this: tinyurl.com/ayzag9
Sold at £2,000, after not selling for £2,500 on two previous auctions. £4,500 may be ambitious?
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You should be claiming off the third party's insurer as it is their insured party's fault. You insurance can do whatever is in their contract with you, so avoid that.
You legally have the right for the third party to cover your expenses to be put in the position you were before the accident, this is not so much the case with your own insurer.
If it was me, I would forward the quotes to the the third party insurers along with any other expense such as car hire, and ask them to pay you.
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The trouble with many enthusiasts is that they always think their car is worth £xxx because it's a certain model from a certain year with a rare option and they've spent many thousands and hundreds of hours work so it must be worth more than others on the market.
I used to get Jaguar Drivers Club magazine and it was full of many such overpriced cars - I wonder how many ever sold.
Unless the value was agreed before hand, how can a assessor tell if your pile of wreckage was an average or fantastic example of the marque?
I would have thought £1700 was probably a pretty fair offer with the current state of the car market, but probably not to the OP.
MVP
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I have read the posts with some interest. There are two ways of pursuing a claim for damage to your vehicle when it is negligently damaged by a third party assuming you have comprehensive cover with your own insurer.
1/ Submit a claim to your own insurer who will value the vehicle and weigh this against the probable cost of repair. If the cost of repair is close to or more than the pre loss value of the car they will probably declare it "beyond economic repair" or a total loss if you like. It is then for you to negotiate a reasonable value with them. They will retain the salvage and dispose of it. You may be able to negotiate with them on keeping the salvage but this very much depends on the condition, it may be required by law to be crushed. You will need to chase the TP for the X/S and your insurer will pursue the balance. It is not, as one respondant has suggested, possible for you to do what you like with the vehicle in these circumstances as the claim is being managed within the constraints of the motor policy (contract) that as the policy holder you have signed in agreement.
2/ You can claim against the TP/ TP insurers direct, they will value the vehicle and again weigh this against the probable cost of repair. In exactly the same way, they will not pay more for the vehicle than its pre market value. It is for you to demonstrate the value you consider to be correct if you don't agree with theirs. You may be able to agree cash in lieu or you may be able to buy the salvage back but as before if it badly damaged it may need to be crushed. Because you are not dealing with the claim within the constraints of any policy in this scenario you have more flexibility to negotiate.
The key here is making sure that you provide all the relevant documentation that demonstrates what a good example of the marque you own. The problem with modern classics is that good ones are worth a bit, moth eaten piles of rust are worth nothing. If you have an arguement, back it up.
And finally it is worth mentioning that the insurance ombudsman will only act for a policy holder in relation to his/her own insurer. He will not take up the cudgells on behalf of an individual against somebody elses insurance company.
No need to quote the whole original message, Rob ;-)
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 14:20
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There are two ways of pursuing a claim for damage to your vehicle when it is negligently damaged by a third party .... >>
Personally, I prefer the third way as recommended by Honestjohn.
see www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=126
"'NO FAULT CRASHES'. If someone crashes into my car, completely their fault, how do I make sure I'm restored to the position I was in before they damaged my property?"
Edited by jbif on 23/12/2008 at 14:30
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The difficulty here is surely the "classic" status of the car and the effect on the value of it... they have made an offer of £1700, that is just the starting point... the difficulty is knowing what the car is actually worth... I bought my Maxi for under a grand, but there are two on ebay at the moment, one of which is comparable with mine, both are currently at or over £1500! Does that make mine worth the same?!
Was the car concours condition and can you prove it with photos/prizes or was it less than that?
According to Practcal Classics the Doly (assuming it was a Sprint and not the lesser 1850) is £4.5k for condition 1 (just under but near to concours) and £2k for condition 2 (has MOT, in reasonable nick and can be used daily but needing work to get up to c1). The other Dolys are far less.
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It would be good to hear from the OP whether the car was insured on an agreed value basis, as I would assume the norm is for a classic car; or just insured as a 'normal' car, in which case the write off value will indeed cause problems.
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It would be good to hear from the OP ...
It would be good to hear from the OP:
1]. Whether he claimed on his own insurance policy, in which case he is in a contractual position with them,
2]. or from the third party and/or their insurance company,
3]. and if the answer to 1 was yes, why did he do that and not 2 as per HJ's faq.
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Wow, so many replies! Thank you for the very good advice.
To clear up a few things.
The car will cost me £4,500 to replace with one in a similar state. I spent 3 years to find a Sprint in this outstanding and totally original condition. It was subject to a nut-and-bolt rebuild by the previous owner over 10 years with more than £6,000 spent on new parts alone!
There are only 150 or so left in the country. Therefore, it's not easy for me to find a like-for-like replacement. I'll probably end up having to buy another car and restore it to my standard.
I did send in an insurance valuation when I took out the policy, but as it turns out my insurers have no record of this! My insurance company have messed many, many things up in the past so I have been unwilling to go directly through them. I was planning to change to another company when this policy expires in Jan. Due to this, I'm claiming through the third parties insurance directly.
My main concern isn't regarding the value, it's that my car was written off on the insurance companies valuation of £1,700 instead of it's true value of £4,500. If they had taken the true value in the first place, the car would have been repaired without question. Speaking to them on the phone today, they have told me that now it has been marked as a Cat C, this cannot now be removed, however they can give me the full amount (providing I send them proof).
I don't want my car written off! As I mentioned before, had they valued it properly it would be sent away for a repair.
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>> It would be good to hear from the OP ... It would be good to hear from the OP: 1]. Whether he claimed on his own insurance policy in which case he is in a contractual position with them 2]. or from the third party and/or their insurance company 3]. and if the answer to 1 was yes why did he do that and not 2 as per HJ's faq.
Because it was a write off and the procedure (or at least the procedure the insurance industry seems to use) is different.
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In reply to b308... Snip Quote
It is a Sprint and near concours, hence my valuation of £4.5K is bang inline with Practical Classics priceguide. If you look on the Practical Classics website, they actually used a photo of my car to illustrate the guide :)
www.practicalclassics.co.uk/car.php?c=917
Edited by rtj70 on 23/12/2008 at 18:12
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If you can get Practical Classics to backup your claim (they did use your car in the photo) your case may be a lot stronger. Best of luck.
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So it wasn't insured on an agreed value basis then? still, sounds like you may get somewhere with the Practical classics angle.
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In my experience, the various insurer's recovery arms and agents where they claim directly off the third party will not do so in the case of a write off.
In these cases your insurers writes the car off, makes the payment and then puts their legal agents on the case to reclaim the excess and claims bonus.
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Thats a shame... was a lovely looking car, Howard!
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