The insurers have written off my Vito and the money won’t cover another van. Bang goes my trip to the Megavalanche in July 🙁

Anyone got a cheap van that seats 6 for sale?

Bummer Jo. No argument to be made re valuation?

Ask for more money. Insurance should pay to replace the car as it was, so you should get back what it costs you to buy another one the same.

Yes, bummer. What happened? Are you OK?

argue the toss. You are insured to be put back in the same position as you were before the incident, less of course excesses.

If what they offer you plus the excess won’t enable you to replace it then they have undervalued.

Get examples of similar age / spec / condition models from the papers, autotrader, etc. and present as evidence.

Did you use their recommended repairer?

Don’t accept their first (or indeed second) offer.
If the damage isn’t that heavy then get a price for repair and decide if it is a viable option to buy the write off back off them and get it back on the road (with the appropriate work and paperwork done)

It was some idiot pulling out in front of us. His car was much worse off though. The approved repairer said the work would cost over £1000 and that the van was worth £750 tops.

Oh and we argued him up from £500 or so for value.

Any van is worth more than £750 if it is taxed & MOT’s for insurance values.

Unless your Vito was on its last legs then i think they are pulling your plonker. I work for a Merc garage. Email me the details and i will email back the guide values and how much you would realistically expect to pay for one on a forecourt of the same age etc. If needed i will put it on letter head so you can present it to the insurers as justification of value. Dont let them take you for a ride.

Thanks guys, I’ll get Mr Jojo who is at home dealing with all this to look at the thread.

Another £750 van no good?

This insurance bollocks really pisses me off.

I had a nice little car, which happened to be yellow, which I really liked. I chose it over lots of red and green ones of the same model, ‘cos they were ten-a-penny.

Idiot woman pulled out in front of me – wrote my car off. She admited full liability. The settlement they offered was for a “similar” car ie red or green. These were selling for a good grand less than my one had been worth.

In the end I couldn’t replace the car with the money they gave me with one I liked so I bought something completely different and spent the difference on other stuff.

The stupid thing is, her insurance company took ages to have my car assesed and happily paid for me to drive around in a hire car for 8 or 9 weeks, including a 2000 mile trip abroad. the hire bill was around 2 grand.

If they’d offered me the original amount, plus half what they paid in the hire charge, I’d have been happy.

muppets.

Should I hold on the letter?

Oh yes, I hear you SST. My wife did that, bloke dinged her door when she was parked. Just a clip on the door skin it was, small dint, would have come out with a quick tap. Car was old and crap and it was no surprise when the insurance company said it was a right off and they’d pay up. We had no problem with that and then offered to buy the car back, it was after all a perfectly good car except for a small dint in the door.

At this they suddenly changed their minds and said the car would be repaired, again, fine by us. The car was in the garage 4 weeks while they messed around and we had a hire car all that time. The first contact we had was the garage phoned my wife and almost screamed down the phone at her that her car was ready and he’d left it on the yellow lines in front of the garage so she’d better collect it quick before it got a ticket.

I sprinted over there on my bike to find the car on double yellows, moved it and then marched into the garage to ask who it was who was shouting down the phone at my wife, no-one was owning up though. We raised a complaint with the insurance company but they didn’t seem that bothered. The car was only worth about 400 quid which is what they offered us in insurance and the hire car probably cost that never mind how much it was to repair it.

We all could have won in this situation but their arseyness cost them a lot more.

Yes please Juan. Need to re-assess what we’re doing.

Spoken to Mr Jojo and he thinks that because of the age and condition of the van it is actually a relatively fair price. It just guts me that for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, we’re going to have to go back to squeezing everything into a car.

cynic-al – Member
Another £750 van no good?

Al, do you mean “would another £750 van be any good”, or “It was another £750 van that is no good” ?

Never accept 1st offer from insurance company on a write off or full loss. They are hoping you will accept and just go away as they figure you need some wheels but if you fight them and can prove that you can’t replace what you had with what they have offered then there should be room for negotiation.

Had this happen a few yrs back when they wrote of a car i crashed but because i refused to accept the offer and it took them another 12 mths to come up with a serious alternative offer i also hit them for a shed load of costs inc Taxis to & from work (Guildford to Reading early morning and late night) plus hassle factor and they ended up settling for double their original offer just before the court date. It did help that i had legal cover on insurance policy and that it was someone elses fault/insurance company.

Oh I can vouch for “legal cover” too btw!

It cost me about £17 IIRC, and it was invaluable. Basically within a day or so of the accident my case was handed over to a third party legal team who took care of all the car hire stuff etc. That was particularly useful because it meant I didn’t have a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that her insrance company would actually pay the hire bill!

Jo, I meant “would another £750 van be any good?”

Yes Al, it would. Needs seats in the back for the kids though, so the Vito was perfect for our needs.