MR2 value - on-going insurance

[WillsSayers]

Now everyone!

Heard back from the insurance today. They've offered £3.4k as a settlement, minus the £300 excess. I can buy the vehicle back from them for £850 as well. What I'm tempted to do is buy the car back, buy a rolling shell, and get the engine transplanted again. Yes, insurance will widen cavity's that shouldn't be widened, but serves me right for crashing.

I need to now look around AutoTrader/PH/etc to see if they've made me a good offer. I was wondering if anyone here could also pass on their two penneth?

My car is:
2000 X reg
Just over 80k miles
Leather interior
Hard Top (altho I still have the hard top at home and they're seemingly oblivious to this altho I'm sure it's declared).
Air Con
And obvs, bright yellow.

[uktotty]

Wills, the general rule is
NEVER take the first offer
NEVER take the second offer.

Seems tight to me, and they always go in low.
Refuse the offer and wait for the next one mate.

[WillsSayers]

Yes but surely I can't just mindlessly refuse it, I will have to back up my opinion with some evidence?

[SimonC_Here]

Other than the standard, don't accept the first offer. I don't think that's too bad. Plus the bonus of keeping all the mods for £850

[uktotty]

We all know they will come in low, your car was immaculate, low mileage, rare colour etc etc, blah blah.
If you declared all the mods then the value will be higher than one on Autotrader.

[cclarke99]

They have to put you back in the position you were before the accident, and from their point of view, what they've offered is about the minimum that meets that criteria. There are 6 '00 cars for less than £3500 advertised at present, (also an '02 and an '04). The highest price is £4500 and there are more above £3500 than below so in offering this price they're rather limiting your choice. So an offer of £3700 might be fairer, if you ask for much more than that, they'll be able to point to lots of newer cars you could buy. Unless the value of the mods was specifically included in the cover you won't get anything for them unfortunately.

[uktotty]

My Saab convertible total loss went from £4600 to £5200 to £5600 before I accepted.

[roger]

I would certainly send a "You must be kidding" reply first off. Don't show your hand at this stage but you could try going in "stupid" with something way excessive and see what they say.

Also try and get them to stump up some criteria upon which their bid / refusal is based and work on that. It's usually so much easier to break that down than support your own premis.

[WillsSayers]

Looking through AutoTrader, it looks like I'm able to say that there's no truly comparative cars until £4.5k....

Air con, hard top, leather seats..... Less miles though.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201008353388446/sort/priceasc/usedcars/price-to/5000/price-from/3000/model/mr2/make/toyota/postcode/dl135eg/page/9/radius/1501?previous=%2Fsearch%2Fused%2Fcars%2Ftoyota%2Fmr2%2Fpostcode%2Fdl135eg%2Fradius%2F1501%2Fprice-to%2F5000%2Fprice-from%2F3000%2Fsort%2Fpriceasc%2Fpage%2F9&logcode=p

Same again as above, more mileage than mine....
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201008353388446/sort/priceasc/usedcars/price-to/5000/price-from/3000/model/mr2/make/toyota/postcode/dl135eg/page/9/radius/1501?previous=%2Fsearch%2Fused%2Fcars%2Ftoyota%2Fmr2%2Fpostcode%2Fdl135eg%2Fradius%2F1501%2Fprice-to%2F5000%2Fprice-from%2F3000%2Fsort%2Fpriceasc%2Fpage%2F9&logcode=p

However, neither have the Toyota bodykit as mine did.......

[uktotty]

There you go Wills, you are thinking like a winner now  s:) s:)

[cclarke99]

Don't overdo it, the one for £4490 has nearly half the mileage and if I was you I'd leave the hardtop out of it, as there isn't one on the car.

[WillsSayers]

Why would I not mention the hardtop? It's part of my car and technically if I don't and go to replace the car, I could/would be pricing myself out of an extra hard top. Even if I kept schtum with the intention of fitting my own to one I buy, I'd have to buy the fitting kit as another expense. Yes I'm away the silver one has half the mileage, but I'm also aware that the red one has 15k more!

[cclarke99]

Imagine I'm the negotiator at the insurance company, I'm going to look at some photos of the car and point out that it doesn't have a hardtop, what would be your response?

[WillsSayers]

Sommat along the lines of "Please feel free to notice the hard top fitting attached to my car as well as the appropriate hard top stored in my house"......?

[cclarke99]

But he won't be interested in details like fixings, or stuff you've got stored in your house. Don't forget that the longer he puts off paying you the more he makes. Insurance companies don't make money from actually doing insurance, they make their profit from what they do with the money in between collecting the premiums and paying the claims. On the other hand, you need the money now to buy a new set of wheels (or thats what he's thinking). Of course arguing about it costs him money, but costs you nothing - thats the advantage you need to play to.

[WillsSayers]

I'm so very confused by your post!

[mrzwei]

Don't leave it too long because the car will devalue by the month.

[cclarke99]

I'm so very confused by your post!

Sorry - I didn't mean to go on so long. What I was trying to say was that you've got to understand where the other party is coming from. Unless you've got a lot of time (like having another car to drive in the meantime?) I'd make a reasonable claim, based on evidence from cars as close as possible to yours in Autotrader and avoiding complicated arguments about hardtop fixings, bodykits, etc. I had a similar experience with a motorcycle a while back but was lucky as a local shop was selling exactly the same model, year, etc. I actually met the negotiator face to face and eventually had to accept a bit less because mine had done a few more miles, thats how tight they were

Don't leave it too long because the car will devalue by the month

Very good advice

[WillsSayers]

I'm certainly not in dire need of replacing it any time in the immediate future (hence why I'm still considering having it run through the engine conversion process again). I've got a Civic to drive in the mean time and I'm insured on company vehicles.

I'm going to dispute the first offer regardless and will see where it gets me – shy bairns get nowt and all that! I just have to consider my options for replacement cars and see what's appealing! V6 another Roadster, buy another Roadster (modified or otherwise), depart from MR2s (certainly don't want a 'practical' car though...).... DECISIONS!

However, thanks a lot for everyone contributions to this thread thus far!

[ChrisGB]

Now everyone!

Heard back from the insurance today. They've offered £3.4k as a settlement, minus the £300 excess. I can buy the vehicle back from them for £850 as well. What I'm tempted to do is buy the car back, buy a rolling shell, and get the engine transplanted again. Yes, insurance will widen cavity's that shouldn't be widened, but serves me right for crashing.

I need to now look around AutoTrader/PH/etc to see if they've made me a good offer. I was wondering if anyone here could also pass on their two penneth?

My car is:
2000 X reg
Just over 80k miles
Leather interior
Hard Top (although I still have the hard top at home and they're seemingly oblivious to this although I'm sure it's declared).
Air Con
And obvs, bright yellow.

Were your mods covered by insurance for replacement? If so, you need to claim for the amount needed to put you back into a similar car.

Chris

[WillsSayers]

Chris,

My insurance is with Adrian Flux (policy with Highway Insurance or sommat), and whilst the modifications are declared, I can't find anything stating that they are covered. I can't find anything saying they aren't, but if I haven't explicitly requested them to be, I can't see that being the case!

-Wills

[Anonymous]

My old policy on the '2 was with Highway via AF and my mods were definitely covered for replacement. It should say somewhere on the policy booklet, I'm sure it used to anyway.

[WillsSayers]

Now Dan,

Did you specifically request that they be covered?

Cheers,

-Wills

[Anonymous]

Not specifically, but it was included on the policy when I received it as I went over it with a fine tooth comb. I may still have the docs indoors somewhere (I'm sad and keep things like that), I'll have a look when I get in if you like?


*EDIT* I know it was in there as I had to list everything for the turbo kit I had on at the time, to make sure I got everything back in the case of an accident.

[WillsSayers]

If you could that'd be fantastic fella. I've got the electronic copy of mine at work and I've searched through the entire document for "modified" and "modif" and can't find anything regarding the coverage of mods during the claiming process; only the initial declaration itself.