60 replies to this topic

[mk3 Cooper S]

i was sat next to him when he was on the phone,
its really annoys me that you have to pay insurance for many years without making any claim then when something does happen and its not even your fault they mess you around,
you really should go higher with this josh, its really not on

Not if you have agreed value insurance

they have already said they are going to repair it,
then they ring him up saying they cant match the paint, and they wont give it a full respray because it will cost £3500

That is because £3500 is more than the book value of the car.
Is the offer with him keeping the salvage? If not as for that, they usually charge 10-20% then either repair it or break it to get your money back.

[joshspragg]

they were gonna charge me 600 quid if i wanted it back.

[sport2000]

Josh
I do sympathise with you as the car I had was in beautiful condition with low miles, I felt so angry I was being shafted over for something that was not my fault,I wish it had not happened but I got a better deal than original although a lot less than I wanted as the car totally outweighed the cash that was given..
And they wonder why people claim whiplash aswell..

Battle it although you won't get fully what you wanted.

[joshspragg]

just feels like loads of hours and money i spent fixing her up and repairing her gone down the drain because some guy wants to give me as little as possible.

[sport2000]

I know exactly how you feel..
I now have my cooper on classic insurance with an agreed value, which may help if I have another problem.. Although it's a BIG maybe they would..

[Shifty]

Its a haggling process, he needs/wants to give you as little as he can get away with and you want to get as much as possible.

Its like buying a car all over again, the deal is done but now you need to agree on a price. As ever you need to conduct negotiations in a sensible and calm manner, getting annoyed and telling someone whose help you need to "shut up" isn't gonna win any friends.

If I were you I'd phone back up and apologize for it, work out in advance what you want to say and put your point over calmly but firmly.

He knows he will have to pay more than that, he's testing the waters.

I wrote an MGB off about 10 years ago, they first offered me £1200, I wrote a letter of complaint to the chairman of the MG owners club(it was insured through them) found a ruck of autotrader.classic car ads for similar. We eventually settled on £3500 and I kept the car.

[joshspragg]

Its a haggling process, he needs/wants to give you as little as he can get away with and you want to get as much as possible.

Its like buying a car all over again, the deal is done but now you need to agree on a price. As ever you need to conduct negotiations in a sensible and calm manner, getting annoyed and telling someone whose help you need to "shut up" isn't gonna win any friends.

If I were you I'd phone back up and apologize for it, work out in advance what you want to say and put your point over calmly but firmly.

He knows he will have to pay more than that, he's testing the waters.

I wrote an MGB off about 10 years ago, they first offered me £1200, I wrote a letter of complaint to the chairman of the MG owners club(it was insured through them) found a ruck of autotrader.classic car ads for similar. We eventually settled on £3500 and I kept the car.

it was a sarcastic shut up, and it wasnt me getting so annoyed i just didnt want to speak to him, so i will try and phone up and apologise. i know its hard to work with a hard customer but i feel like he was messing me about just as much and felt really unprofessional. just need to sort it out tomorrow, and phone everyone up and see where this is going.

[sport2000]

I went and sat down with the engineer face to face.. We reached an agreement in the end, I played the game but he knew aswell he had to do better than original offer..
You could apologise, but I soon realised I was just another reference number, so I didn't apologise just talked it through.

You will find your own solution.

[Shifty]

On of my favourite tactics when complaining or doing stuff like this is to ask the the person what the next stage in the complaint proceedure is. Ask if you need to speak to the ombudsman, say you are unhappy with the way it is progressing and where do you need to go from here.

Ask them to provide you with the details of the ombudsman.

Just be firm and make it very clear(and politely) that you have no problem in escalating the claim or taking it to the ombudsman if necessary.

[joshspragg]

i'll take the whole calm thing in advice. everyone loves a nice customer. nice but firm. and i may use the ombudsman advice if i need to. cheers for that.

[Ethel]

The insurers have no interest other than giving you the cheapest settlement you can get away with, especially if you weren't even their customer.

What you need to do is convince them the settlement you want will be the cheapest they can expect to get away with. Do all your dealing in writing, start by asking for a copy of the engineer's report and information of where you can buy a replacement Mini in the same condition for what they're offering. You can also send them your valuing info from pistonheads etc. The effort it takes to replace your car should also be reasonable, you'd be entitled to buy from a dealer not wait for the off chance of buying an Ebay bargain at the other end of the country. I trust you are also saving all your transport related receipts and consider hiring the odd car, the mounting costs will chivvy them along. If they are still dragging their heels you could get a solicitor to send them a nice letter - that should convince them you won't be fobbed off 'n really threaten to jack up their costs.

Best not to tell 'em to "shut up", the irony will be lost if he doesn't watch TOWIE 'n it gives them an excuse to hang up on you.

[Sam14]

So let me get this straight..

You had a knock in the rear,
They were going to repair it but didnt because of cost and paint.
So they offered you £2000 with the choice to buy your car back at £600

So that leaves you £1400 to repair your mini...

I dont see where the problem is.

I mean it would cost me £900 to have my mini restored, that's a lot more panels than a rear shunt.....

[Guess-Works.com]

The bottom line is, without an agreed value policy you are always going to be at the mercy of the insurance company and their appointed engineer for a pre-accident value, and they are going to use book value as a guide...

You need to provide evidence of similar vehicle values, unfortunately the one which was posted earlier is not similar in anyway, nor does it give you a value, but rather someone's optimistic hope for a price...

I have an extensive database which has been gathered from ebay over the last couple of years and details minis, their sale value or max achieved value if unsold or even the buy-it-now price. I've had a quick look through at Studio 2's and there has not been one which has sold for more than 2k over the last year.

Nearest I could find are, which look in a similar level of modification...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/270901083656

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260867088447

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320768702223

with others which must be overpriced as they haven't sold..

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290666276850

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230734592154

There are more examples if you need the numbers and I'd keep your eye on this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190643360913

previously on ebay as a buy-it-now for £2995 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190639121917

Edited by Guess-Works.com, 24 February 2012 - 07:41 AM.

[The Matt]

When my XR2 was written off, I was offered £650, I refused, they increased that to £850, I refused. My second letter of refusal (before the days of emails etc) included a sheet of newspaper clippings showing adverts of similar milage/age cars (some of them were literally the same 90k miles, black, D-reg XR2), the average price for a car the same as mine was probably around £1500 in the adverts.

In the end, I got £1350 for it.

As said, stay calm, don't get too aggressive and try and haggle. It can be done, it HAS been done and there's every chance that by keeping calm and friendly with them you'll get an increased offer. Don't argue with them, just debate the point....there's a subtle difference there.

His job is to get you to accept as low an offer as possible. With regards to complaining, I wouldn't bother yet. I'd try the haggling process first. Look for Mini Magazine, Mini World and take clippings of similar cars. Look in the For Sale sections here too. It's all evidence. Agreed value insurance would obviously have helped here, but it's too late for thinking about that now.

The only thing I would say is that you're never going to get back full whack for everything you've put into it, but you might get a bit more than the £2k you've offered.

[se_juggles]

what did you put as the valuation on the car when you got the insurence??? also a full re spray is no more then £1500 the guy is talking bull.
The worse thing is that if you put the valuation of the car lower then the price its going to cost them to fix they will just write it off and give you the valuation minus that excess surely?? which may screw you over.
I will be putting a value of 6-7 grand on mine as its what im paying to restore it so it sure as hell will be what they pay out for it if they want to write it off! lol