Insurance Company low car valuation

The_Seal · 05-03-2013 10:56AM #1

Hi,

I feel like im being totally screwed here. Got home the other day and found out that my car had been crashed into. I got the drivers insurance details from the gardas and i submitted my claim to the drivers insurance company RSA. They informed me to get a quote from a garage for the repair. I did this and sent my damage report of 3200 to RSA. They intern sent out there assessor to confirm the damages.

They replied to me saying the car was a category D. An uneconomical repair. So they want to write of my car. The damage is cosmetic and is 100% safe to drive. Not only that but they are only willing to offer me 4500 for my car which i bought it for 6400 only 6 months ago. They reason the low being that there was a car on carzone of similar stats for this €4500 so this is what they say it is worth. I find this hard to believe since the lowest price i found for a Suzuki Vitara was a minimum €6000. I even did a valuation check on my car for €5800.

Basically my car got damaged, i am the innocent party and the insurance company won’t repair the damages or offer my the correct vehicle value for the car. They also said i could also keep the car and they would send me a check for €1900. More than €1000 less than what it will cost to get it fixed.

Does anyone have similar experiences or know of anyone who i can contact and to help me out here, surely i have some rights here.

Will

guttenberg · 05-03-2013 11:06AM

You don't have to accept their initial offer. Print off everything you can find that values your car for a lot more than the 4500 they are offering and get back to them and they'll likely come back with an improved figure.

antodeco · 05-03-2013 11:07AM

You could claim on your own insurance. If you have free legal aid with your insurance, then you are even better. Your insurance company will fix everything up, and then they will go after the other insurance company for repayment. I was in a crash and the cost to repair was 70%. The solicitor I had from the insurance paid it themselves and then got reimbursed for the damage, plus a 10% rebate due to re-sell value from the damage.

monkeypants · 05-03-2013 11:09AM

Suzuki Vitara for €1450. I have no further details to use in the comparison.

Meh, forget that, do what antodeco suggests.

runawaybishop · 05-03-2013 11:32AM

The_Seal wrote: »

They reason the low being that there was a car on carzone of similar stats for this €4500 so this is what they say it is worth. I find this hard to believe since the lowest price i found for a Suzuki Vitara was a minimum €6000. I even did a valuation check on my car for €5800.

This happens alright, you need to challenge their assessment of your cars' value. Do what they did and grab some examples that are more realistic. Personally I'd just contact my own insurance company and let them sort it out.

listermint · 05-03-2013 11:36AM

Took this advice from another forum but its sound advice. Never take their first offer. you have every right to refuse it. Should follow below

When our car was wrote off (2008 E92 320i) I did not accept the first offer, I instead done the following...

Created a spreadsheet and started listing all similar cars from various online sites which is what the insurance companies also use. I listed for each car what was different with the spec of my car e.g. no leather, not automatic, not m-sport, mileage difference.

I saved all searches in PDF files for backup.

I then went to the revenue site and got their valuation for OMSP. Saved that in a PDF also.

I also contacted some dealers & with difficulty convinced some to provide a letter of what they would sell the car for. Slightly inflated on the possibility of a sale post settlement.

In the spreadsheet I then worked out what price I felt I should be getting based on all the above.

I then emailed the insurance contact who was dealing with me on the settlement with all the documents and a version of my excel file and told him in a nice way I felt the offer was low.

He took the information and then came back to me with a higher offer which I felt there was still some room to push further but it was an acceptable offer and I needed the cash to sort a car I had waiting.

bazz26 · 05-03-2013 12:39PM

While you should decline their initial offer as it is too low you need to understand that 6 months ago was last year which means your car was a year younger and was worth a bit more than it is now so it is very unlikely you will get a payout in the region of the full amount you bought the car for. Best thing to do is as suggested already is to gather some evidence of other priced similar cars and present it to the insurance company.

R.O.R · 05-03-2013 12:56PM

bazz26 wrote: »

While you should decline their initial offer as it is too low you need to understand that 6 months ago was last year which means your car was a year younger and was worth a bit more than it is now so it is very unlikely you will get a payout in the region of the full amount you bought the car for. Best thing to do is as suggested already is to gather some evidence of other priced similar cars and present it to the insurance company.

Some cars have actually increased in value since last year. With the shortage of newish second hand cars, the VRT increases have upped pricing here as a lot of the cars for sale are now UK imports (no other way to source vehicles).

RSA outsource the valuations to a 3rd party - ETWB, who it turns out are UK based. I'm looking forward to a "conversation" with them in the next couple of days as my better half's V70 is no longer. Closest equivalents available now in Ireland are priced at what we paid for it in October last year, but as they are UK imports, they aren't as high spec as ours was.

bazz26 · 05-03-2013 02:23PM

R.O.R wrote: »

Some cars have actually increased in value since last year. With the shortage of newish second hand cars, the VRT increases have upped pricing here as a lot of the cars for sale are now UK imports (no other way to source vehicles).

RSA outsource the valuations to a 3rd party - ETWB, who it turns out are UK based. I'm looking forward to a "conversation" with them in the next couple of days as my better half's V70 is no longer. Closest equivalents available now in Ireland are priced at what we paid for it in October last year, but as they are UK imports, they aren't as high spec as ours was.

While I agree with your point about some cars increasing in value I'd doubt very much that the OP's Vitara falls into that category as they are not a car in huge demand. It's worth more than what the OP was offered imo but not near to what the OP paid for it last year.

jones · 05-03-2013 02:45PM

I had something similar happen, i bought a Golf 2 years ago and after less than 3 months a river burst its banks when the flooding was happening and my car was written off. I paid 14,500 in a VW dealership for the car but the insurance company said it was only worth 13k so i went back and went mad saying there was no way it depreciated €1,500 in less than 3 months. They gave in and gave it at €14,250 (i had to pay 250 excess).

I think they just chance their arms sometimes :-)

The_Seal · 05-03-2013 02:56PM

Yes i have been dealing with the ETWB which is confusing why the RSA would outsource the valuation of Irish cars to a UK company.

I am going to follow some of the advice from the above posts. I have already sent them several adds as a price comparison. My Vitara is a 3dr 2006 model and the cheapest one from a dealer with mileage near mine (70,000m) is €5950.

Not happy with how this insurance malarkey works. Naively thought that if some crashes into you that you get your car repaired or replaced that being the idea of insurance in the first place.

Insurance Company low car valuation

Comments