Pre-accident value

De Hipster

I was involved in an accident/crash (through no fault of my own...insurance company backing on this too) with a 3rd party insured vehicle and am now claiming through my own fully comp policy to get this sorted relatively quickly, so I can get back to a life on the road.

My problem is that my insurance assessor has gravely under-estimated the valus of my vehicle - 1995 2.0lt GT Celica, 79K, (UK spec) @ €4,400 market value (current average value I can find on the open market is €6900-8500).

This evaluation is nothing more than obscene, IMO, (and includes salvage as the car is a write-off) when attempting to source a vehicle of the same spec & condition in this country.

Is there anywhere I can get a realistic value based on current actual market value that the insurance company (hibernian) are likely to consider?

The car was insured for a reasonable value of €7000, which was recommended by a Toyota dealer over the phone at the time...but they are unwilling to put this on paper now, after the fact & are quoting from the same book as the insurance evaluator.

_Kaiser_

De Hipster wrote:

I was involved in an accident/crash (through no fault of my own...insurance company backing on this too) with a 3rd party insured vehicle and am now claiming through my own fully comp policy to get this sorted relatively quickly, so I can get back to a life on the road.

My problem is that my insurance assessor has gravely under-estimated the valus of my vehicle - 1995 2.0lt GT Celica, 79K, (UK spec) @ €4,400 market value (current average value I can find on the open market is €6900-8500).

This evaluation is nothing more than obscene, IMO, (and includes salvage as the car is a write-off) when attempting to source a vehicle of the same spec & condition in this country.

Is there anywhere I can get a realistic value based on current actual market value that the insurance company (hibernian) are likely to consider?

The car was insured for a reasonable value of €7000, which was recommended by a Toyota dealer over the phone at the time...but they are unwilling to put this on paper now, after the fact & are quoting from the same book as the insurance evaluator.

This happened to me too... also wasn't my fault and the other party accepted liability (very nice woman in fairness to her).

Like yours, other examples of my car (older and with more mileage in fact) was (and still are!) for sale at about €1500-2000 more than her company was initially offering but after telling them "not a chance" and faxing them a printout of the carzone listings they agreed their offer was a bit low.

Still had to escalate to management and shout a bit though before I finally settled for €250 less than I originally paid (unfortunately you will lose SOME money in the end ). Having worked in callcentres/tech support myself, one thing to remember is there's no point venting at the person who answers the phone. They don't have the authority in most cases to do anything beyond the "script" anyway, hence why you politely ask for a manager at the first resistance.

My advice so is to keep arguing and push that "your client was at fault (in my case she admitted it straight away), thus your job is to get me back on the road in the situation I was in beforehand..which does NOT include being several grand out of pocket, or having a car that's an 'economic write-off". Course in my case I had the added bonus of being able to give out about them not lifting a finger for nearly a week in the first place ("you'd be quick enough if *I* owed you money").

Worked for me (took 3 weeks though!) :rolleyes:

De Hipster

Sounds like a dream situation to me...no offence! I'm over 5wks after the accident, no admittance of liability (looking a 10-20% cop out over council sign) & now going through my own insurance who are trying to screw me!

_Kaiser_

De Hipster wrote:

Sounds like a dream situation to me...no offence! I'm over 5wks after the accident, no admittance of liability (looking a 10-20% cop out over council sign) & now going through my own insurance who are trying to screw me!

no offense taken.. the coupe version of my old car that I bought is actually a much nicer car - always a silver lining I guess

In your case I'd push the "why am I paying for it when the other party was at fault - by your admission also" angle and I would (like I did) fax em a printout of the carzone listings for cars like yours to backup your point.

Mighe be worth ringing around other companies/garages for a valuation on a car of the same age/milegage/condition as yours. I did this and it strengthened the case as a result.

Also don't be afraid to hassle them. I had to ring 2/3 times a day to "push" them for updates, and only after escalating to a manager (who I was told by my own company will take it a lot more seriously then), did I get a decent and efficent response. I had a cheque sent the same day that I spoke to them in the end.

De Hipster

I have now been requested by my insurance company to offer proof of the value of my own vehicle through dealers, cbg & autotrader clippings...is this usual practice?

So far I've 3 authorised toyota dealers offering quotations (based on my intent to purchase rather than pre-accident value) of a) €6000-6500, b) €7000 & c) €9000. Also clippings from the trader over approx 6wks ranging from €5900 - €13000 for similar models...is this likely to have any effect?!

Ratchet

you just lucky they are not using ros.ie for reference where

OPEN MARKET SELLING PRICE of this car is €1866


value of your car and dealers price ,these are two different things.

you should ask dealer about trade in value of mint celica and ad few bob on top of that. this will be more realistic price.

De Hipster

Ratchet wrote:

you just lucky they are not using ros.ie for reference where

OPEN MARKET SELLING PRICE of this car is €1866


value of your car and dealers price ,these are two different things.

you should ask dealer about trade in value of mint celica and ad few bob on top of that. this will be more realistic price.

The value is for me to replace the car that was written-off by a muppet braking a continuous white line...therefore OMSP is what I would expect to pay for an equivalent vehicle as a replacement...i.e. how much my vehicle would have expected to fetch pre-accident?

Ratchet

De Hipster wrote:

....would expect to pay for an equivalent vehicle as a replacement...i.e. how much my vehicle would have expected to fetch pre-accident?

yep

which means that you are looking at privately owned car which is sold by the owner and value of this vehicle is different from aproved used toyota sold by dealer.