Insurance company value

[chadwick]

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??

Ooh. Now that's interesting....

[ott11ma]

Another thought - did you take out Legal cover with your insurance policy? If so, then you should be able to get your insurance company to help you fight for your loss.

Tim

[Mr Funk]

If you modified it then you may be in the poo. Unless you get specific insurance many companies will only pay out for a standard car.

[chadwick]

Nope. I don't have legal cover and it's not modified. It's an extremely nice, completely standard GT2 - and impossible to replace for £175.00

I spoke with Zurich last week. They completely refused to send me a copy of the engineers report (I thought maybe they were legally obliged to, so I really pushed for it, but was toally stonewalled by them). HOWEVER, I managed to beat out of them the quotation their recommended garage gave for fixing the dent in my wing....

£1,350.00

£1,350 to knock out a dent and fit a new door mirror!!!! No wonder our insurance premiums are so bloody high! Theiving ba*@ards...

[testgerbil]

It sounds to me like Zurich acting fairly dodgily on this case. I would certainly demand to see the engineer's report.

Have you had any legal advice over this issue? The citizen's advice bureau might be able to point you in the right direction, possibly even Trading Standards might have something to say. It strikes me that £175 to write a car off is severely under-valuing it.

P.

[Chaps]

Insurance are t*ssers, they rip you off when you wanna take out a policy, then they rip you off when you want your money back. Next time I get my scirocco insured, i'm going to get an agreed valuation on it. then they cant wriggle out of it in the unfortunate event. It costs abit more, but worth it in the long run i think.
Keep on at them fella, because £175 is well out of order!

[chadwick]

They've now agreed to increase the value to £450.00, which I'm also disputing.

Because I've disputed their 2nd offer, I've been referred to the 'Complex Department'. For the first time in nearly 2 months, I've just managed to speak to someone human who laughed out loud when he read the file!

I'm hanging on for more money as I still don't believe I could replace my Rocco for £450.00 (although is it just me or have the price of Sciroccos on ebay hit rock bottom lately?)

It's a big gray area - the Financial Ombudsman and British Insurers Association say they can't get involved as I don't have a 'contract' with the 3rd persons insurance company. Apparently, if they still fail to deliver, I have to sue my next door neighbour. They're not exactly the friendliest of people, so I'm really not comfortable with going down that route.

Zurich really are a bunch of swindling crooks...

I want to get the car repaired - has anyone here had a problem getting insurance on a car that has previously been written off?

[buggerrit]

No problems with re-insuring after total loss, as long as it's a cat d or cat c at worst.
They sometimes don't even note it on the V5 tho it will still show up on HPI checks.
You may need to get the car re-mot'd and Vehicle identity checked by the dvla
( no sweat if the car is genuine) if they request the V5 from you, if they offer a
settlement minus the salvage value without asking for the v5 to be returned you're
probably on to a winner.

[RoccoGuy]

If you modified it then you may be in the poo. Unless you get specific insurance many companies will only pay out for a standard car.

how can that be true? as long as its all declared then how can they refuse to cover your mods?

[Junglist]

They'll simply state in the contract "modifications are not covered" and that's you quids out. Like he mentioned, there are specialist insurers out there. I'm sure they're mostly scum too, though. I reckon the most foolproof way is (If your car's worth anything) agreed value. Get VW to certify its value, then get an agreed value with the insurer. That way they pay what they agreed to. Keep it up to date though (the VW certification). Ask the insurer what exactly they'll need from you before they'll pay out the agreed value. I expect they all have different requirements.