Retention of salvage UK classic car insurance

PostPost by: Spyder fan » Thu Sep 17, 2015 6:12 pm

billwill wrote:The Link in the first post doesn't work anymore.

The current version of that link is:
https://www.rhspecialistinsurance.co.uk ... -insurance


Thanks Bill,
I have edited my first post. I believe that RH Specialist cars has recently changed hands, but the policy details remain the same.

Their breakdown and recovery policy is excellent, I know this for a fact as I was stranded with a non functioning starter motor a few weeks ago and they took me home then delivered the car to Spyder in Peterborough, all part of the service.
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PostPost by: billwill » Thu Sep 17, 2015 6:20 pm

AHM wrote:
billwill wrote:Don't wanna be a killjoy, but:
Surely if yours was an agreed value insurance policy and that value was written in as ?10250 then your premium was based on that figure and that was what you were paying for; if there was no "Market Value" clause there is no point in getting the value reassessed now.


Bill,
If the accident is your fault, then your insurance company are going to pay you the agreed amount. If the accident is someone else's fault then they are personally responsible up to the market value. If the market value is less, than the agreed value then your insurance company make up the difference. That is why you pay the extra.

There is no requirement to involve the insurance companies, the claim is between the individuals. Rich's claim is not against his insurance company if the market value exceeds the agreed value, so they should be pursuing the third party for the market value + any costs. As he would have to, had he not paid them to act in his interest!


Bringing back a topic from a year ago,
I found the bold italic phrase highlighted in your message somewhat hard to believe, but then I realised that the THEY in that sentence refers to the person who damaged your vehicle and not your own insurance company. Actually strictly speaking that person is responsible for the legal "damages" of which replacing or repairing the car is part.

But what it boils down to is that if your insured "agreed value" is less than market value you can sue the person who damaged your car (the damager) for the difference (and your insurance company could sue the damager for what they have paid out). Also I think you are saying that you can request your own insurance company to sue that damager on your behalf.

So there is some point in getting the car's pre-incident market value recalculated after an incident, to determine the amount to sue the damager for.
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PostPost by: AHM » Thu Sep 17, 2015 11:55 pm

No Bill,

What it boils down to is if you don't like what your insurer is offering you, you are entitled to sue the damager yourself and the insurer cannot make you assign that right.

You don't both sue the damager
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PostPost by: RichC » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:03 am

I had thought of that but not for long ... the kid, whose fault it was, was a young 19 and poor.His dad, when he picked him up, was found to have allowed mot to lapse and looked broke .... I decided to put the financial loss behind me after a short while .
The replacement shell is just about ready to go off for respray & I hope by next spring it'll be back on the road .
I'll be anticipating agreed value considerably higher than it was last year .................
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PostPost by: Chancer » Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:13 pm

Probably a Wise move, even if you have a legal protection Policy they will hide behind the small print saying that they will not represent you when there is little or no hope of recovering damages.

However, what you are talking about is an uninsured loss as would be say car hire, loss of earnings etc, his insurer will almost certainly paid, or will pay, your insurer, they cant refuse a 3rd party claim for lack of MOT, if you can confirm that they have paid then liability is not in question and they should settle a reasonable uninsured loss claim, if the total amount for repairs, not other losses was more than the then market value of your vehicle then I dont think they are liable.
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PostPost by: billwill » Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:19 pm

After much searching, I eventually found Kim Eaton's post describing the Category Descriptions of Insurance write-offs.

This is its link:
lotuselan-plus2-f51/god-t24543-15.html#p157656
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PostPost by: gus » Sat Oct 03, 2015 12:03 pm

I think a comment that does not vary with location:

Be careful where you go and do not allow the body shop to get carried away, they see an 'expensive' car and the bills rack up

Now in the US the standard collision practice is the body shop prepares a quote and the insurance writer comes out and checks it, or the insurance writer does a quote and the body shop accepts it, but then they can get adjustments. For example, in a modern car they may call for a bumper cover but cannot see the underneath support needs replacing until they take it apart. "hidden damage' so in that system it is possible to get over what the insurance company would pay. So in this system it is actually better to understate at first if you wish to avoid a total loss.

The lesson is be in control of the system, don't be controlled by it
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PostPost by: Spyder fan » Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:20 pm

I think it's a good time to bump this topic and advise UK owners to check their policies and ensure that they are covered financially in case their car suffers major damage.

I was at Spyder yesterday and there was an Elan that had suffered heavy damage to the front and along the nearside. This is a car that was fully restored 6 years ago. I am trying not to give too many details to protect the owners privacy, but the car needs body off for repairs and repaint. That's an expensive business, but the cost is no more than 65% of the cars value. However, the owners insurers wanted to write off the vehicle because they like many in the industry have a deal with salvage yards that gives them one third of the agreed value for the salvage. Therefore as the cost of the repairs were around or slightly more than two thirds of the of the agreed value they wanted to limit their loss and pay out the agreed value.

The owner has now agreed a payout below two thirds of the cars agreed value, has retained the car and is paying Spyder the difference. He is therefore quite a bit out of pocket.

So please have a check on your insurance and be sure that your car has been valued recently by Club Lotus or Paul Matty and that you have a proper agreed value with your insurers, and then check that you can retain the salvage as well as getting the full agreed insurance payout.

These are the people I use https://www.rhspecialistinsurance.co.uk ... -insurance There are others who offer a similar deal, just make sure it's "retention of salvage without deduction"
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PostPost by: Chancer » Wed Aug 10, 2016 6:09 pm

I can confirm that is indeed a global agreement that most insurers have with the big salvage yards, so when you think that you are paying for a 20K insurance value they are really only insuring a risk of 13K unless you have the retention of salvage clause. The percentage varies according to the category of the damage but 30% for a vehicle as you describe is correct.

I used to buy a lot of salvage vehicles from one of the biggest breakers in the South East, one was a severely damaged Caterham, it was one of the first De-Dion cars and one of the first Zetec conversions, we expected the insurance value to be ?9k max so I was expecting to pay ?3K max plus a little for his margin, it was a case of waiting for it to clear and then he phoned me apologetically to say that the insurance payout was ?13K and he had to pay ?3900 for it and had no choice in the matter, he could not understand why it was so high, we discussed it, he didnt know about the Zetec conversion and I think the owner must have had an agreed value insurance, we agreed a price of ?4K or he was going to put it up for sale in the Exchange & Mart, no internet in those days, he said that sometimes he lost out on salvage but overall the percentages worked for him or he would not do business with them.

Later on I bought a burnt out 3 year old Ford Galaxy, when it cleared the price was again too high but he managed to renegotiate it to a lower category of write off and I bought it for the correct price.

I had never considered that this could effect whether a vehicle was repaired or not but it makes complete sense and your warning is a good one.
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