Numpty questions re: motor insurance and write-offs

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 Blue Straggler 19 Mar 2023

Hi, as mentioned in the now quite long EV thread I started, my car was written off last weekend (smashed into overnight whilst legitimately parked on street, hit and run, no witnesses)

I've had to claim on my own insurance of course, and they will come to collect it on Wednesday and assess value for a payout. 

I don't have experience of this having happened before, nor do any of my friends/family (well my sister had a car stolen once so I'll ask her later)

Questions:
1) Insurance company will generally want to minimise payout, I assume they will try to value the car as low as possible. What are my "weapons" to negotiate up, aside from a fair look at Autotrader etc for cars with similar vintage? The car is 2011 Citroen C3 Picasso with 80k on the clock, I don't want to volunteer £ figures here as you never know who's reading. But let's say they offer X and I honestly feel it is worth Y (Y>X), how do you negotiate up? They'll have the car by now, I don't see what my negotiation tools are! I have receipts showing I put four new cross-climate tyres on last year, plus new discs and pads all round, and a pricey bill on electrics (the secret fusebox started burning up!) - any use? I'll take pics of overall condition as the paintwork etc was in good nick. 

2) It's a write-off, claimed on my insurance. I believe I paid for Protected No Claims but I honestly don't really know what that even means. I am buying a replacement car and need to get some insurance quotes, which I'll start doing online today including seeing about transferring my current insurance to the replacement car. I guess I am now no longer in the category of "no claims in the past 5 years" but, related to 1) above, do I need to declare 0 years NCB? I suppose this is a question for my current insurers re: Protected No Claims but whilst it's Sunday and they are closed, I thought it also worth asking here. 

Thanks! There was a third but I've forgotten it, it may be folded into 1 and 2 above. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Oh! The third question is "will they still take my excess off me, given that I am not getting repairs done in my own interest"? 

 jonfun21 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

As I understand it you will declare the No fault accident/write off, but you retain your NCB (depending on the terms of this). Hence your insurance before NCB discount may go up but you will benefit from the NCB discount.

my wife ran into the back of someone, low speed no damage, but they claimed for personal injury, we had protected NCB and this was the process we followed - albeit we renewed with the same insurer the first time, but am pretty sure we changed a year later and just declared the accident and submitted the proof of NCB (which was retained via the protected product)

main thing is your insurance may go up (ours did) but you still benefit from the insurers NCB % discount.

Comparison sites let you enter this level of detail so you should be able to compare 

hope this is useful, but based on personal experience so usual caveats apply

Post edited at 10:45
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I've had two write-offs, one was my fault and the other someone else's. Both times the value I was offered was great, in fact the second one I got more for the write-off that it was worth, but quite a long way. I think (it was ages ago) that it was worth about £1200 trade-in and I got £2500...

In reply to Alasdair Fulton:

Thanks Alasdair, I've seen this happen twice (a write off on a friend's car, and a theft of my sister's car). Presumably all premiums get adjusted upward so that the insurance industry isn't giving money away and they get to create a "feelgood" factor at the time of the incident  
Looking at prices of equivalents to my car, which I bought nearly three years ago, I might get an acceptable first offer anyway. 

 Hooo 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I can't help with point 1, but for the others:

2) You have to declare a claim in the past 5 years, but you still have the same NCB that you had before the claim. You can use this against your new policy and your current insurer will provide documents to back this up.

3) They will keep the excess. If they value your car at £10k and your excess is £300, they will send you £9700.

What I found after claiming with protected NCB is that my base policy didn't get more expensive (because I still had full NCB), but the cost of protecting the NCB went up significantly. So much that I didn't bother protecting for a few years until the cost went down again. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, as insurance is very much based on individual circumstances.

In reply to jonfun21:



> - albeit we renewed with the same insurer the first time, but am pretty sure we changed a year later

My sister's experience (yes, sample size of one, and specific circumstances) seems to recall that she pretty much HAD to stay with current insurers as others didn't want to quote. 

> hope this is useful, but based on personal experience so usual caveats apply

Indeed, noted

 Hooo 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Alasdair Fulton:

I don't want to get Blue's hopes up too high, but I had a similar experience. I totalled my bike ( my fault, so I'm told...). It was a high mileage cat D write off when I bought it, and a browse of the ads showed newer low mileage ones going for £1300. I figured I'd be lucky to get £800. The valuer phoned me to check the mileage, and then said he'd value it at £3200. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, it was just an insane price. Bought me a car, a couple of years insurance, a Paramo jacket 🙂.

 SimonTp 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

On your first question I see that most people’s experiences have been positive. Hopefully, yours will be too. I recently had an old car written off and ended up disagreeing about the value. The Financial Ombudsman’s site has some useful information about the process https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insura...

(In my case the difference between where they started and the fair value that we agreed on wasn’t massive, but it was worth the argument. The low value came from the agent that my insurer used. When we agreed a new value and they put it to the third party’s underwriter, they didn’t push back.)

 Martin W 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

In terms of getting a valuation for your old car, you might do worse than try putting its details in to Webuyanycar.com and see what offer they come up with.  Obviously don't tell them that it's a write-off when you get to the questions about its condition!  It would at least give you another data point.

Post edited at 15:06
 Andypeak 19 Mar 2023
In reply to jonfun21:

> As I understand it you will declare the No fault accident/write off, but you retain your NCB (depending on the terms of this). Hence your insurance before NCB discount may go up but you will benefit from the NCB discount.

Believe it or not if it's a hit and run the claim has to go down as your fault, not no fault. At least that was what I was told when my car got hit and they didn't stop. 

 Dax H 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Your insurance is going to go up though not as much as if you lost the NCD. 

Re the value, I have mixed experience, a car I paid £100 for and had insured for £50 was hit by someone and I got £250 for it. 

But a van worth £10k was written off, they offered 6k for it, we argued the case, my main point being can you show me where I can get the same van at that price because all the ones I can find are far more expensive. We settled at 9k.

In reply to Dax H:

> But a van worth £10k was written off, they offered 6k for it, we argued the case, my main point being can you show me where I can get the same van at that price because all the ones I can find are far more expensive. We settled at 9k.

Thanks, this will be my approach if required. Seems fair.

In reply to Andypeak:

> Believe it or not if it's a hit and run the claim has to go down as your fault, not no fault. At least that was what I was told when my car got hit and they didn't stop. 

Interesting (and sorry to hear it). I know it differs from case to case but in a direct comparison I wonder if it makes any difference that nobody was in my vehicle and it was not in motion on the public carriageway at the time of the incident. 

In reply to Martin W:

Thanks, I've looked for similar vehicles on Autotrader, eBay and Parkers (obviously a lot of crossover/duplication) but will also see what webuyanycar say. 

Edit - done, laughably low but then again that is for me selling into a trader who will look to make presumably 100% minimum profit on that, as demonstrated by me entering the car I am buying to replace it, which is fairly priced in the current market, and seeing that one also come out as less 50% than what I could buy it for! 

Post edited at 18:05
 Andypeak 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Neither was mine. Parked up outside my house and I was asleep. I tried to challenge it but got nowhere. 

 owlart 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

When I had mine hit by an unlicensed, untaxed, uninsured driver (well, he hit the back of a line of parked cars, which all got shunted into the one in front, until mine, 4 cars in, got shunted into a space), Norwich Union (now Aviva) immediately doubled my premium, and despite having paid up front, I had to pay the extra for the remaining year ("in case someone claims against you, if they don't we'll reduce the premium again"). My 1yr NCB wasn't affected though.

They then failed to reduce the premium, and I made a formal complaint, they offered an extra year NCB as compensation. I took my business elsewhere, but they sent proof of NCB to the new insurers which included the extra year and this was accepted, so I ended up with more years NCB then I'd been driving!

 Hooo 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Andypeak:

I think fault / no fault doesn't refer to who was to blame, but who paid for the claim. If your insurance company paid the claim, then it counts as your fault. If someone else's insurance pays, it's no fault (for you). So theft and hit and run claims are always fault claims, even if you did nothing wrong.

 SDM 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

To add a less optimistic anecdote:

I was hit by another driver last year. The first offer from my insurer was approximately 20% of the cost of a like-for-like replacement. I went through 3 levels of appeals, which incrementally improved their offer to less than 60%. When I rejected that as well, they decided that it wasn't going to be a cheap option to write the car off, so they decided it would be economical to repair after all.

All you can do is save records for every similar car advertised and sold, and make sure to keep notes of anything that makes these cars worth more/less than yours.

If they'd offered a realistic settlement at the beginning, they could have got to work repairing my car immediately, instead of paying for an additional 4 weeks of hire car costs. A waste of everyone's time and an unnecessary increase to all of our premiums.

Do your research and be prepared to fight your corner if they play hardball. Hopefully, you won't need to. 

In reply to SDM:

Thanks. May I ask what the value of this vehicle was? Mine is at the low end and seems (from the comments from the genuinely helpful chap I spoke to at my insurers) to have been written off on age and “it’s been hit” without even needing to look into the details 

 SDM 19 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

True replacement value was ~£8-9k.

I suspect the initial assessment on mine was similar to yours. After the first 2 refusals, I had to send the next appeal to a different company. I suspect this was the first time that anyone looked at the specifics of the case, rather than just reading a number from a spreadsheet.

Post edited at 20:45
In reply to SDM:

Thanks, I now see that I gave a pretty easy clue in the OP. 
I think a write-off is accurate. Bumper and wing and another wing-related panel need replacements , a load of plastic cowling has come off from within wheel arch and the steering is knacked (steering wheel spins freely). 

 LastBoyScout 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Hooo:

> I don't want to get Blue's hopes up too high, but I had a similar experience. I totalled my bike ( my fault, so I'm told...). It was a high mileage cat D write off when I bought it, and a browse of the ads showed newer low mileage ones going for £1300. I figured I'd be lucky to get £800. The valuer phoned me to check the mileage, and then said he'd value it at £3200. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, it was just an insane price. Bought me a car, a couple of years insurance, a Paramo jacket 🙂.

Similar to me when I got knocked off my bike. Payout for the bike was about £1500, I'd paid about £900 - in fairness, I'd done some restoration work on it since I'd bought it. They also paid out for all my clothing and helmet at full retail price and refunded my excess, as other person's fault.

 LastBoyScout 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

1 - no idea.
2 - You keep the NCD, but you'll be getting that discount of a (potentially) higher base premium. So on quotes, you need to declare the claim and put in your NCB amount.
3 - Depends on your insurer - some have no excess if you're hit by an uninsured driver, etc, so check your policy.

I assume the police aren't interested in investigating? If you've got any evidence, then you could try looking around locally for a car with matching damage. When a friend of mine's car got hit one night, the driver helpfully managed to leave part of his bumper behind and a short walk down the road found the offending vehicle, owner of which was still hung over and they got the police involved then.

 Dax H 20 Mar 2023
In reply to owlart:

> When I had mine hit by an unlicensed, untaxed, uninsured driver (well, he hit the back of a line of parked cars, which all got shunted into the one in front, until mine, 4 cars in, got shunted into a space), Norwich Union (now Aviva) immediately doubled my premium, and despite having paid up front, I had to pay the extra for the remaining year ("in case someone claims against you, if they don't we'll reduce the premium again"). My 1yr NCB wasn't affected though.

There is no way I would stand for that and would have been straight on to the ombudsman, your initial premium is based on their estimation of your risk. 

We were told once by the ombudsman that taking something to them automatically costs the insurance company £500 so they really don't like it. 

In reply to LastBoyScout:

Thanks. Zero evidence and police already wrote back in response to my online report, to say that they won’t be investigating. Can’t blame them, nothing to go on. Offending vehicle isn’t in any way obviously nearby. 

In reply to thread:

For now I have just done a change of vehicle on my existing policy as my written off car is being taken away on Wednesday by the insurer’s assessors/breakers and I am purchasing my replacement car on the same day. I have 4.5 months remaining on my current policy and the replacement car has a higher value, plus my mileage has increased so a few changes there plus admin, came to £183 which is on the high side for a few months but I just needed to get it sorted smoothly. We’ll see what the full year renewal looks like in early August 

 Dax H 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

That's interesting, normally in a write off your current policy is canceled and you start again with a new one. I was told "it's paid out so its done its job" but in an accident repair it pays out but doesn't get canceled. 

I hate insurance. 

 Hooo 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Dax H:

Yep. For young drivers who often pay much more for a years cover than the value of the vehicle, if they do write it off they are much better off discretely disposing of it and claiming they've sold it, rather than making a claim.

In reply to Dax H:

> That's interesting, normally in a write off your current policy is canceled and you start again with a new one. 

I expected this, hence starting the thread now, but after asking around a few friends and family it sounds like what I’ve just done is more the norm. Certainly my current insurers went straight to this option (I did ask them what’s the norm and what’s best). 

 Eam1 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Weirs this should crop up. Just off the phone to the NFU, someone hit my camper van, they have admitted fault. NFU say they have written off my van. I can accept cash and keep the van or accept a write off for half what I paid f9r it 2 years ago. They've also said I have an open claim and my premium os going up.

 Hooo 20 Mar 2023
In reply to Eam1:

If it's repairable, take the cash. I did this a few times, the inevitable consequences of riding a bike in London. I even wrote off the same bike twice. Take the money, repair the necessary stuff but don't worry about anything cosmetic. You have a perfectly good vehicle ( that's now less likely to get stolen), and some leftover cash.

They should refund your extra premium once the claim is settled. Although the sneaky thing they don't tell you is that even a no-fault claim where the other party paid still goes on your record and can increase your premium a bit.

 Eam1 21 Mar 2023
In reply to Hooo:

Thanks! That's probably what I'll do. I will try to argue for full cost of replacement first as I've nothing to lose!


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