Insurance company value

[chadwick]

A couple of weeks ago my neighbour drove into my parked 1992 GT2

There's a fairly sizeable dent in the O/S front wing, smashed headlight, and a great big scratch all along the wheel arch. Call me pessimistic, but I'm expecting the insurance company to write it off and offer me some paltry amount for the value of the car

A few years ago I had a sweeet Audi quattro - FSH, perfect condition, practically nothing on the clock. Less than a month after buying it, it was completely trashed by a lorry driver and the insurance company offered me £200 for it's 'pre accident value' - despite me offering to provide receipts to prove I'd bought it for £600 just weeks before. I couldn't get them to budge an inch.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

Any tips on how to avoid - or are we just at the disposal of the 'computer says no' insurance people?

Cheers
Ruth

[the edmundator]

The Register can help to some extent, I believe, providing an "expert" opinion on values of Sciroccos. It's probably also going to help your case if you can provide examples of cars that have sold recently and how much they made (e.g. on eBay). The Classic car mags also provide some (admittedly quite generalized) values in the price guides - Practical Classics or Classic Cars both list Sciroccos.

[GTXTRA]

'saving' Scirocco adverts on ebay and the classic car magazine leads as suggested would be the easiest/first line of attack.

[chadwick]

I'll give it a go.
Last time I didn't get the opportunity to get that far - was completely stonewalled. I said I could fax through the receipt proving what I paid for the Audi weeks before the crash but was just met with 'this is the market value' over and over again.

Let's wait and see!...

The good news is that my father is a retired car mechanic who loves my rocco and has promised to bend it back into shape and give it a complete respray. I'm going to use whever money I do get for paint, parts, and probably about 2 month's bus fare.... (not looking forward to the latter).

[Rusty dan]

agreed valuation???... how bomb proof is that?

[Slugga]

If you have gone through the process of submitting valuations, descriptions, photos, etc and it has been accepted by the insurance company and they have issued you a valuation certificate - very bomb proof!

[stu.gtx]

Can you not request they provide you with an equivalent replacement if you can't agree on a valuation?

[chadwick]

Still waiting for news from Zurich insurance company on this one.

I had to take it to their designated garage yesterday to estaime the ccost of repair. He immediately started referring to it as 'salvage' and going on about how old it was... What a tosser.

Just waiting to see what the insurance company offer me for the value of the car. Parker's value 91 Sciroccos at £80 for poor condition and £200 for good condition!

[hyperdrinky]

£200! That is crazy!I regularly go through Autotrader, Ebay and the like looking for Roccos and I've never seen a good one for £200. The last one I saw for £200 came with specially air-conditioned floor and a rust-colour paint effect. You'd be looking at least 5 or even 10 times more for a properly good one (I think it was someone from this forum who was selling their red mk2 CL for £2000).

The whole British car insurance system really annoys me. I'm 25 just now, have had a Rocco for about 2 years now and have just recently been able to get insurance on my own rather than on as a second driver on my fathers policy. I'm not going to say I'm an angelic driver (who is?) but at the same time I've never had an accident that was my fault and hold a completely clean license. Insurance companies will wriggle out of paying if there is the slightest loophole for them. My father's Mk3 (mint condition) Granada was rear ended by a driver who drove away and the insurance company would not pay him a bean unless he completely wrote it off. They thought it was "Beyond Economical Viability". Who are they to be judge, jury and in that case executioner.

What confuses me even more is that I'm about to teach my girlfriend to drive in the Rocco (I know, I'm scared too!) so I put her on the insurance policy and it went DOWN by £3. How does that work??

Sorry guys. Needed to get that off my chest.

Sorry to hear about your Scirocco, but its good to hear you're getting it sorted.

[Throbbe]

In a similar situation I managed to argue a £100 offer up to £1000, largely based on work carried out to the car (with reciepts) to make it better than average condition.

I just refused each valuation until they sent an engineer to inspect the car.

It did take me 9-10 months though!

[scirocco_1969]

some nice OAP took my bumper out a few weeks ago, he wasn't looking where he was going in a car park, silly man, just got a inform by the insurance company for the bumper and labour, they have told me they had to get a quote for the bumper as mk1 golf as scirocco bumpers aren't made any more, they have offered me £235 for bumper and 2 hours labour, but i'm doing the work my self, but thanks to some very kind person on here i got front and rear bumpers for a faction of the price, like i said to his insurance if she goes to the garage she will go to vw heavan that why i said i'd do it my self, 2 hours took me and the misses 10 mins lol.

word of advise if you can do it yourself do it yourself.

[chadwick]

It begins.
Zurich have decided my car is a category C total loss. Offered me £175!!!

[ott11ma]

Whilst (fortunately) i have no recent experience of having to make an insurance claim, i thought that if the accident was not your fault, that you are entitled to force the other party's insurance company to put you back in a position you were beofre the accident - at any cost - i.e. they have to fix the car if you demand it?? i think you can also claim costs for a hire car of equivalent status (!) to your car (ie not just a basic 1 litre ford fiesta) whilst yours is being fixed.... might not be the same if you classic car insurance (as i do on my Rocco - my terms require me to have access to another car, which i have).

£175 seems cheap - what was the cost of your last years premium??? more than that??

Good luck with your fight.

[the edmundator]

It begins.
Zurich have decided my car is a category C total loss. Offered me £175!!!

Tell them to F-off. What valuation did you give it when you took out the policy? If you said it was worth £175 or less then that might be a problem, but if you gave it a higher valuation they should respect the value you insured it for - they will have factored that into how much your policy cost in the first place.

Show them that the cheapest mk.2 Scirocco on Autotrader.co.uk at the moment is £600, with a mean price of £1,398.75.

Also point them towards the classic car price guidelines in Classic Cars/Practical Classics: an average condition mk.2 (i.e. something that has an MoT and no major faults) is valued at £700.

[chadwick]

I think it was valued at £1,000 when I took out the policy - but my insurance company have nothing to do with it now. My car was parked when it was hit so it's my neighbour's insurance company (bast**d Zurich) I'm having the fight with.

I've just posted them off a very stern letter, with adverts for other Sciroccos. I quoted a couple from £995. Did you know someone is selling one for £3k on classiccars! I mean, I love my Rocco, but £3k? Bizarre given that on ebay they seem to be going for next to nothing at the moment.

I've also reminded them of their legal obligation... Utter sods. I spent more than £175 on tyres a few months ago. What you're supposed to be able to buy for £175? Crazy...

The good thing is that I'm going to get it repaired as it's still perfectly driveable and I have NO intentions of scrapping it. I can wait and wait and take up as much of Zurich's time as possible until they see sense. I'm in no rush.

Oh - I forgot - they actually value the Scirocco 'salvage' at £9.50. Not £10, nope, £9.50