blah blah long story short,

is there anyway I can milk some more money out of an insurance valuation?

I use the word "milk" loosely, basically I want a price that better represents the value of what I've lost

They've given me a value of £1250 for my car, but I couldn't replace it for that and I thought that was the point? I can't find any that aren't initially being offered for £1900, so even taking haggling into account I'd like to push for closer to £1500 as I feel thats more representative.

The chappy was nice, and engaged me over his valuation, I told him I'd come back to him. Can I just send him links to every £1500+ pug on ebay, autotrader and PH to show I'm not trying to take the p?

Anyone any experience of this? I imagine its much harder with a "classic" car, where the value is contained in its quality pre-crash.

Yes you can argue with them. send them the links and ask them to show you how you can buy a similar car for the money that they are offering.

don't give up!

yes that is exactly what you need to do, also make the point you are happy to spend as long as it takes to get a proper value - basically imply you will become a pain in the ass to get the price you want, that has always worked for me, and then when they have come back with something reasonable I phone up, kick off and say I'm insulted etc. and the only way I will settle at that price is if they include salvage retention for free.

Funnily enough it hasn't failed once, but its always been on bikes, and I'm always claiming off a third party.

I had a stinking valuation for a car of mine once and ended up getting it more than doubled. I fought with similar adverts (in fact not as good as my car (higher miles, less spec etc..) but selling for more money.

I used Autotrader examples (trade sales not private), Ebay, Glasses/Parkers guide, my full dealership service history...

I had to print them all off and mail them to them and cut out adverts. A massive pain and I was bitter about doing it but proved well well worth it - To be honest I didn't expect such a generous second offer. It was only about £200 short of what I'd paid for the car a year or two back and before I'd added many many miles!

If it's supposed to be market value, get them to find you one, pay for it themselves and give it to you

My dad had the same problem when someone wrote off his rover 400 (that he'd had a year and had budgetted on keeping at least 5), his had high milage and they would only give a tiny amount because of this, nowhere near enough to buy a simillar car. I don't remeber what happened in the end, only that he got a £300 blue bird for a bit then bought a brand new car.

I've always though the system would work better if they didn't give you money but instead found you another car, though it wouldn't work because they do like hire car companies and you get the or simillar which was nothing like the car you had.

I had a similar problem so I forwarded copies of recent work that had been undertaken new clutch services etc they upped the payment due to the serviceable condition of the motor and market value

Its that scrappage scheme that screwing up the cost of cars in the cheaper end of the market 2 k down. My buddy recons theres 200 plus cars going through mots for scrappage at his garage every month.

The down side for him is thats 200 less customers for the next few years as the new cars get free service at main stealers.


The problem is recorded values are following actual values. Thus affecting what the insurance is offering.


good luck

[Edited on 23-11-09 by mangogrooveworkshop]

all come down to money, insurance companys need to make some so if they settle 100 claims per day for £500 lower than 'market value' then that means more ££££ for them, lots of people are not car/value savvy ,so just take the offer not knowing they could with a little research and moaning they could get ££££ more