Mugged off by the insurance company

Semple

Semple

Semple

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My brother was involved in a rear end collision last week, the other party have already admitted liability.

The car is a BMW E46, about 10 years old, around 2k market value (actually more, as its had a number of things replaced with new). The insurance company are only offering £1750 for the car which he's not happy with and they refuse to budge. The other option he has is to buy the car back, and repair it (repair quotes of around £1000). However the insurance company are offering the car back for £1400!

I've been reading a number of forums tonight and it seems the typical buyback price is 10-20% of the payout, even upto 30% in some cases. But with his case it seems the buyback price is 80% of the payout quote. Now to me this seems insane and doesn't make the slightest bit of sense logically. If the car is only worth 2k, the 1400 value of the car combined with 1000 repair costs already tips it well over the scales of what its worth. He'd even be happy to pay 50% of the buyback price, he's not looking to make a profit, he just wants the car back on the road without being out of pocket.

Any thoughts?
 
insurance co in being utter trumpets non shocker,


just remember if he is unhappy and they reach in impass he can always go to the ombudsman
 
Is your brother talking to his insurance company, or the guy who crashed into him? You should be talking to the insurance of the guy who crashed into you. You will get the market value if you stick to your guns.
 
If the crashed car is worth £1400 crashed and £1750 to be replaced then tell them to repair it.

£350 is not greater than £1750 (yes it doesn't quite work that way as repair costs for insurance companies are higher than those that buy written off cars).

Ask them to prove the £1,750 price. You also provide evidence of a £2,000 price.
 
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I had this same problem when my Rover 220SDi was written off in 2010, they offered me 495 initially so I came back and said the cheapest one I can replace it with was 895, she asked me to prove it so I told her to look on Autotrader and there were indeed loads at £500ish but none with an electric sunroof and alloys for less than what I wanted so I ended up arguing that unless it was the same spec it was irrelevant and I wasn't going to accept.

They agreed later that day & I also bought the car back for £25 as it just had a dented door then sold it on to someone that wanted to repair it. :D
 
Are they saying that a smashed up E46 is worth £1400 but an uncrashed example is only worth £350 more?
 
[TW]Fox;25200548 said:
Not true - some might try and pull this stunt but especially in a non fault accident you are entitled to the cars value and trade value is not relevant unless you are a trader and purchase your cars at trade money.
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Very much true, used to work at 2 ins cos with claims people, and this was pretty much the accepted first offer they would make.

Read the small print, most policies will actually list something along these lines, but of course not it these exact words an dyou always have the option to refer to ombudsman.

The ombudsman will then typically look for market examples, this will be easy or hard depending on the model spec etc.

As I said, ins cos will normally pay around trade, if you reject and especially if you can find similar examples they should give.

Whats difficult is proving its worth more than the poorest example someone can find that looks like its the same, eg a tatty model listing the same equipment/options etc when yours was in A1 condition. (This can be quite subjective)
 
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Thanks for the information MKW.

Bit of an update from him. Yesterday he contacted the financial ombudsman who were quite surprised at how high the buyback figure was, and was advised to ask how that value was calculated. Not being able to get hold of the engineer dealing with his case he phoned through to the claims department for the insurance company and spoke to a different person there, and even they couldn't understand why the figure was so high.

Today he had a phone call back from the engineer, and asked him to confirm what the payout and buyback values were and was told the same the first time round. After telling the engineer he refused to accept that offer, and mentioned that after researching forums/speaking with someone in the claims department which suggested the buyback values typically tend to be 10-30% of the payout he was put on hold, then within a couple of minutes the engineer had dropped the buyback value from £1400 to £450! Couldn't even give an explanation as to how they were suddenly able to drop a grand off the price.

I'm astounded how they can get away with this. Do claims engineers work on commision based on what they can sell written off cars for.

I've said after everything has sorted, he should personally make a complaint about the engineer. Or at least to get an understanding of why the buyback figure was so high in the first place. I can imagine not everyone will stand up to an insurance company, so they probably get away with a number of these scams regularly.
 
90% of the GP just accept what they offer, they have no idea of value of cars.
I got an excellent value for my Prelude £1750 and then the buy back was £88, no brainer bought it back and eBayed it for £800.
Then my wife’s E39 the company were total con jobs, got offered I think iirc £2k for it and spent two weeks threatening them with the ombudsman eventually they paid out £3300 and I bought the car back for £1100 iirc
 
Semple said:
Thanks for the information MKW.

Bit of an update from him. Yesterday he contacted the financial ombudsman who were quite surprised at how high the buyback figure was, and was advised to ask how that value was calculated. Not being able to get hold of the engineer dealing with his case he phoned through to the claims department for the insurance company and spoke to a different person there, and even they couldn't understand why the figure was so high.

Today he had a phone call back from the engineer, and asked him to confirm what the payout and buyback values were and was told the same the first time round. After telling the engineer he refused to accept that offer, and mentioned that after researching forums/speaking with someone in the claims department which suggested the buyback values typically tend to be 10-30% of the payout he was put on hold, then within a couple of minutes the engineer had dropped the buyback value from £1400 to £450! Couldn't even give an explanation as to how they were suddenly able to drop a grand off the price.

I'm astounded how they can get away with this. Do claims engineers work on commision based on what they can sell written off cars for.

I've said after everything has sorted, he should personally make a complaint about the engineer. Or at least to get an understanding of why the buyback figure was so high in the first place. I can imagine not everyone will stand up to an insurance company, so they probably get away with a number of these scams regularly.
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I have never heard of a engineer (although they used to be called loss adjusters) working on commission. Its always possible there are self employed in that area working on an agreed commission basis.

I suspect more likely it was an error and to avoid looking like a muppet he tried to stick with the original number. When it was pushed he knew the game was up and just relented.

The two companies I had knowledge of had agreed salvage companies contracted to take motors from them, the ins co however is far happier to pay out on the insurance and deduct some for a buy back. The paperwork is completed and end of case. If they have to involve the salvage then its just more paperwork and that costs money.
Rather than a percentage I think the buy back is far more influenced by what the salvage will be. I know of one loss adjuster that would quote a high price on a few cars and then have a deal with the salvage company. He got sacked eventually but he had got himself some nice motors over time at a very cheap price and had relationships with people that could fix those vehicles ;)
 
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