Insurance company want to write off my car and I don't!

Snake Plisken

Hi just looking for advice

Woman crashed into me in a car park, she admitted liability I contacted her insurance company they're motor repair crowd, damage was front bumper radiator pushed in bonnet damaged, still drivable as I drove it into the crowd to look at, any how had to chase them up today and they tell me that the engineer report said that it was beyond economical repair, now it's a 2002 Fiat Punto with Air Conditioning and alloy wheels low milage and passed the NCT without any issue, So they are offering me €2000 and a salvage value of €275, I told the insurance company I'm not happy I don't have money to buy a new car and I valued my car at €2500, they aren't budging saying that they check sites like carzone.ie to value my car. So what should I do? What can I do? Just accept the valuation? I spoke to a local repair crowd who reckon they could get it back on the road using second hand parts etc? Should I just take the valuation less the salvage price?

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

Brian?

As far as I know you can take the money, fix the car and get an engineers safety report allowing the car back on the road.

Once the insurance company pay over the cash, it's up to you what you do with it. You are under no obligation to scrap the car at their behest AFAIK.

CiniO

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Hi just looking for advice

Woman crashed into me in a car park, she admitted liability I contacted her insurance company they're motor repair crowd, damage was front bumper radiator pushed in bonnet damaged, still drivable as I drove it into the crowd to look at, any how had to chase them up today and they tell me that the engineer report said that it was beyond economical repair, now it's a 2002 Fiat Punto with Air Conditioning and alloy wheels low milage and passed the NCT without any issue, So they are offering me €2000 and a salvage value of €275, I told the insurance company I'm not happy I don't have money to buy a new car and I valued my car at €2500, they aren't budging saying that they check sites like carzone.ie to value my car. So what should I do? What can I do? Just accept the valuation? I spoke to a local repair crowd who reckon they could get it back on the road using second hand parts etc? Should I just take the valuation less the salvage price?

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

If you think your car is worth €2500 insist on it. Send some proof to the insurance company, like similar car ads available online or from newspapers for similar price.

Then if they accept it was worth €2500 before the crash, and they established salvage vaule at €275, that means they will pay you €2225.
You can then give them (or rather salvage company they work with) your car for €275, or you can keep it.

If you can repair it cheaply with second hand parts, and want to do it - go for it.
Keep the car, get €2225 from insurance company, and repair it.

Jesus Shaves

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Hi just looking for advice

Woman crashed into me in a car park, she admitted liability I contacted her insurance company they're motor repair crowd, damage was front bumper radiator pushed in bonnet damaged, still drivable as I drove it into the crowd to look at, any how had to chase them up today and they tell me that the engineer report said that it was beyond economical repair, now it's a 2002 Fiat Punto with Air Conditioning and alloy wheels low milage and passed the NCT without any issue, So they are offering me €2000 and a salvage value of €275, I told the insurance company I'm not happy I don't have money to buy a new car and I valued my car at €2500, they aren't budging saying that they check sites like carzone.ie to value my car. So what should I do? What can I do? Just accept the valuation? I spoke to a local repair crowd who reckon they could get it back on the road using second hand parts etc? Should I just take the valuation less the salvage price?

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

You're getting 2275 so take the money and upgrade.

Owen

Don't forget your policy probably has an excess of a few hundred quid too, so in all likelihood they're giving you 2500 ish less that excess.

Snake Plisken

darokane wrote: »

You're getting 2275 so take the money and upgrade.

Nah they are offering €2000 less €275 salvage value so I'll only get €1725, I know I could take the money and upgrade but that means taking out loans which i don't really want to do.

Problem is proving that it's worth €2500 to me, they want examples from various sites, they won't accept valuation from Main dealer they keep going on about carzone.ie donedeal etc.

Snake Plisken

Owen wrote: »

Don't forget your policy probably has an excess of a few hundred quid too, so in all likelihood they're giving you 2500 ish less that excess.

yeah but it's not my insurance I'm claiming off, its the other party, this insurance malarky is a bit of a scam

Jesus Shaves

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Nah they are offering €2000 less €275 salvage value so I'll only get €1725, I know I could take the money and upgrade but that means taking out loans which i don't really want to do.

Problem is proving that it's worth €2500 to me, they want examples from various sites, they won't accept valuation from Main dealer they keep going on about carzone.ie donedeal etc.

Go to the insurance ombudsman if you have issues with their valuation, they'll soon change their tune

TestTransmission

€2,500 is a tad optimistic if you ask me

http://www.donedeal.ie/find/all/for-sale/Ireland/2002%20Fiat%20Punto

CiniO

I looked now on Donedeal and it looks like you should be happy they valued the car at €2000.

Guy:Incognito

Their valuation doesnt look too bad to be fair. Out of 34 02 Puntos on carzone, only 4 are priced over €2000. Of those 4 I'd imagine if you walked up to them with €2000 cash, at least 3 will take it.

The OMSP according to the VRT calculator is €2000 . Thats them just upping it to that so it produces the minimum figure of €480 for the co2 band.

VolvoMan

€2,275 is twice what the car is worth. Bloody take it and run!

oldyouth

They've offered what they think is fair and invited you to come up with evidence to the contrary. If you can't provide that, what's the problem?

Voodoomelon

Do insurance companies only check Irish prices when they value a car? Mine originated from the UK and go for a lot more in the UK, would they only take a look at the cheapest cars on donedeal etc if I were unlucky enough to have it written off?

oldyouth

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Do insurance companies only check Irish prices when they value a car? Mine originated from the UK and go for a lot more in the UK, would they only take a look at the cheapest cars on donedeal etc if I were unlucky enough to have it written off?

Why would they check the prices in a foreign jurisdiction when you have insured it in Ireland?

Big Nasty

Let me get this straight - they are offering you €2k and no car or €1725 plus you get to keep the car? How much does the body shop say they can fix it for? Even if it's as much as €1500 you're still up €225.

Am I reading this right?

Snake Plisken

MCMLXXV wrote: »

Let me get this straight - they are offering you €2k and no car or €1725 plus you get to keep the car? How much does the body shop say they can fix it for? Even if it's as much as €1500 you're still up €225.

Am I reading this right?

well the bodyshop haven't seen it yet but I would hope they could repair it for on or below this figure, I believe it will need an engineers report to say it's road worthy, what I reckon it needs is drivers headlight, Bonnet, top and bottom bar ( not sure what the correct term is) Air conditoner rad (might do without that as I believe it's expensive to gas it up) Normal rad, and then spray painted.

guil

you could possibly get them in the same colour from a scrap yard for 2-300 hundred and then the price of the aircon rad if ya wanted, i think it's about 100 to fill it

bbsrs

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Should I just take the valuation less the salvage price?

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

Its a no brainer , you obviously like the car you have and don't wan't to spend out more money on another car so take the 1700 cash , get your car repaired using 2nd hand parts where possible ,for sure less than 1700 then have a week in lanzarote with the leftovers . thats deal of the century in car insurance terms

george tobin

my car was stolen and written off got 3000 from insurance put the car back on the road for 700 no problems,its not illegal to do this.

Matt Simis

Snake Plisken wrote: »

yeah but it's not my insurance I'm claiming off, its the other party, this insurance malarky is a bit of a scam

Yeah they seem to have misvalued your car way too high at the expense of everyone elses policy!
You value it at EUR2500, sure why stop there, why not pick some other arbitrary figure like 3500 or 5000?

http://www.donedeal.ie/find/all/for-sale/Ireland/2002%20punto

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Dont understand why you say you cannot "afford" a replacement. Take the money and buy two 2002 Puntos.

ottostreet

Take the money, buy yourself another 2002 Punto if you want to, and spend the other 1000 on whatever....toilet roll, or stuffed teddies or...I dunno, something you want!

Snake Plisken

Matt Simis wrote: »

Yeah they seem to have misvalued your car way too high at the expense of everyone elses policy!
You value it at EUR2500, sure why stop there, why not pick some other arbitrary figure like 3500 or 5000?

http://www.donedeal.ie/find/all/for-sale/Ireland/2002%20punto

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Dont understand why you say you cannot "afford" a replacement. Take the money and buy two 2002 Puntos.

Because 2500 was what i got quoted from the main dealers I bought it from!

Voodoomelon

oldyouth wrote: »

Why would they check the prices in a foreign jurisdiction when you have insured it in Ireland?

I just realised what a silly question that was. :pac:

ShadowHearth

Op, I sow that ad on tv about insurance fraud. Was that fella with really long nose was you?!


Sorry, but 02 punt is not worth even 2k eu..

listermint

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Because 2500 was what i got quoted from the main dealers I bought it from!

Its not worth that money, Sure you can get 2002 BMW E46 Saloon for that type of cash.

Honestly take what everyone here is saying and run with it. They have overvalued your car. Take the cash be happy as larry, Fix it up if you want. But I wouldnt bother arguing with the valuation.

antodeco

Am I right in thinking that if its written off, but you buy it, your insurance will pay feck all out on your car if anything happens again?

Daved_XB

Snake Plisken wrote: »

well the bodyshop haven't seen it yet but I would hope they could repair it for on or below this figure, I believe it will need an engineers report to say it's road worthy, what I reckon it needs is drivers headlight, Bonnet, top and bottom bar ( not sure what the correct term is) Air conditoner rad (might do without that as I believe it's expensive to gas it up) Normal rad, and then spray painted.

In my experience insurance companies like to make as much money as they can... are you sure that your car is repairable for less than they are offering?? if they have had it inspected & are saying it will cost more that the cash payout to fix, perhaps they know something you don't.

It's possible that some structural part of the front end is now damaged (may have been slowly rusting & weakening over the years) & the repair may not be as simple as bolting on a few panels like you think

Brian?

Daved_XB wrote: »

In my experience insurance companies like to make as much money as they can... are you sure that your car is repairable for less than they are offering?? if they have had it inspected & are saying it will cost more that the cash payout to fix, perhaps they know something you don't.

It's possible that some structural part of the front end is now damaged (may have been slowly rusting & weakening over the years) & the repair may not be as simple as bolting on a few panels like you think

An insurance write off is not when the cost of repair is greater than the value of the car. It's when the cost of repair is greater than 40%* of the cars vaule. So the cost to repair it could actually be €1000, they value the car at 2K therefore it's a write off.

*I think it's 40%.

Guy:Incognito

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Because 2500 was what i got quoted from the main dealers I bought it from!

Obviously they'd love to sell you another one for €2500. Doesnt mean thats what you should pay.

mickoneill30

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Because 2500 was what i got quoted from the main dealers I bought it from!

Are the dealers saying they'd buy your Punto for €2500?

I think you're on to a winner there. Buy a Punto of the same spec and go to your main dealers and tell them to buy it for €2500.
Repeat.
.
.
Retire.

I've an 02 Punto in pretty good nick. I bought that for €1700 4 years ago 48K miles on it now. If your dealer wants it, it's available for €2500.

Snake Plisken

Ok ok lads I get the message I spoke to the insurance company today, how they valued it was they actually put it up on some auction site for 24 hours and the highest bid they got was €2000 that's what they based their evaluation on the insurance crowd's repair centre where the car is are going to quote me on repairing with second hand parts etc, should know Monday what they are going to charge me.

Bigus

1 Take the 1725 and your car ,
2 sell the 02 0n donedeal damaged for 500 or 600
3 find 5 or 6 hundred to add to it and buy this 2006 Grande Punto seller is asking 3000 you might get it for 2750 so you'd have to come up with even less money.

Grande Punto much better and way safer than old Punto
http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2256203

De Hipster

Think I would be opting for replacing the car, either take the settlement for the lot (including scrappage), or sell the car on yourself as damaged.

If you do opt to repair your car & reinsure it - don't forget to lower the value considerably, crashed vs non-crashed = large market value difference.

voteforpedro

take the money and ruuuuuuuuuuun

Delancey

OP - I have an Alfa 147 and someone drove into me some weeks ago - estimates for repair were between 4 grand and 4.5 grand which pretty much put it beyond economic repair.
The other guys insurance accepted liability and their assessor agreed that my car ( apart from crash damage ) was in good nick and obviously well-cared for , he described it as '' very clean ''.

Based on the fact that I was not even 1% at fault and that I wanted the car fixed as opposed to written off he agreed to allow the car go for repair provided I agreed to what he called a '' compromise repair ''.
Essentially that meant that as opposed to using factory parts bought from Alfa at utter rip off prices I allowed salvage parts to be used.

Got the car back with a 100% repair which I was well pleased with.

That may be an approach you may wish to take ?
That said I have to agree with others here - 2002 Puntos are a ' dime a dozen ' and 2 grand seems very generous.

Good luck whatever you do !

manana

Useful article below from Irish Times. It's about how some insurance companies won't give a decent replacement value. All those with cars wrecked in the flood take note!
As long as the insurance companies can decide the replacement value of your car there can't be fair play. The assessors are not independent. A quick web search will tell anyone the market value of a car.Where's the Financial Regulator in this?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/pricewatch/2011/1031/1224306801454.html

flutered

Daved_XB wrote: »

In my experience insurance companies like to make as much money as they can.

insurance companys are similar to graveyards, they take everything, then give away as little as possible.

mickdw

Take the money, hit breakers or ebay and get the parts in the correct colour and there will be massive savings. 200 euro would buy a hell of alot of front end bits for a 02 punto. Very little work in repairing then.

TestTransmission

flutered wrote: »

insurance companys are similar to graveyards, they take everything, then give away as little as possible.

Please don't drag up old threads