Motor Low "market value" offer for written off car

albob

Registered User
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60
Hi,
Due to an accident we have had to write off a 2-year old car that was purchased through a dealer. Looking around the exact same car (same spec, similar millage, etc) is being quoted 17,500 for cash(I rang and spoke to them).

However the insurance company are saying that the market value is 14,250. I had expected them to come in low, but nowhere near as low as that!

Do I have to take private sales into account when determining a market value, or seeing as we purchased the original in a dealer, can I just go with dealer prices?

At the moment my plan is to get the 3 garages that are selling the same spec car to provide letters of market value. Any other advice?

Thanks
 
I would get a valuation (as if prior to write-off) done on motorcheck.ie and use their valuation (if higher) to try to push the insurance company's offer up.
 
Interestingly, the difference seems to be VAT (14,250 x 1.23 = 17, 527.50). Are you VAT registered? If you are your claim will be settled VAT free as you've already claimed it back. Commercial vehicle? Registered to a company?
 
Had a similar experience a few years ago. From looking at carzone, I could see we were getting around 2k less than what we felt it was worth.

Basically, the car had a high spec but the valuer treated it as a basic model. We fought it out with the insurance company through phone and email, until he valuer went back out...this time armed with the points I had raised about the spec.

Valuer reviewed his offer and came close to what we had felt it was worth. So we all settled on that
 
Don't forget, there will be an excess to pay and you will lose no claims bonus
 
No clams protected thankfully.

After looking into this some more, the "book" value of the car is 14,500 which is probably where they got their value from. Talking to some dealers, book value is often meaningless and doesn't follow the real market value. Anyway I have a few dealers willing to put 17,500 as value down in a letter. One of them sold one this morning for that very price.

I am not VAT registered, but that's an interesting coincidence alright.
 
book value is meaningless????????????

Dealers are quick to quote high prices when you WANT a car, but have you noticed how low prices are when you SELL the car?

hard to see how there is a €3500 difference. I would think that the DEALER price woudl be higher than the PRIVATE price as dealer has to cover warranty etc.
 
I finally got to speak to the insurance valuer and got the details of the cars he was using as the basis for his valuation. Turns out they are all the old model of the car. New model out in 2nd half 2012 which is what we have. I have to follow up with him on this info Monday. (He was adamant he was looking at new model). Anyway that explains some of the difference.
He also seems to be assuming quoted price us for trade in, and knocks a good chunk off for cash. Prices are not trade in.
Finally as car was dealer purchased, they use forecourt prices. However they knock another chunk off to account for the value of any warranty the dealer much offer. That's extra to the car value and thus not covered.

Anyway hopefully I'll make some progress on Monday.
 
I had a similar experience a few years ago. I got the supplier of my car to put in writing what he would have been prepared to offer me on the car on the day prior to the accident, taking into consideration mileage, condition etc and they paid exactly the price he was willing to pay.
Wishing you luck. The insurers nearly always win. Browtal
 
It's about time these things were reported to the Ombudsman, they take no account of the price of maintenance to bring the car up to the standard of your existing car.
My son just had his car stolen and written of, by the time he took into account excess payment etc and loss of no claims,he was out of pocket so he did not claim.
 
Progress is slow and painful. They keep using lower spec car/older car for justification and even at that are still very low.
Is there an independent ombudsman I can go to for this if we don't come to an agreement?
 
Hi Albob, I was trying to send a PM but doesn't seem to be working. Drop me a line and I'll see if I can reply to it.
 
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