Insurance write-off question

[Paddy]

If a car has an open market selling price of say €21000 and is written off but the insurance say the value is €18000, is it possible to claim a VRT refund? Or do I haggle/fight for the correct OMSP value from the insurance?

Anyone in the know???

[RossYB]

AFAIK no VRT refund.

Basically the insurance make an offer on a car and it's up to you to use examples of other like for like cars for sale to prove what it'll cost you to replace it. (Carzone.ie is good for this)

They offer you say €9000.... But there'll also be a salvage price, So say they've been offered €1000 for salvage by a breakers etc..

They sell the car on your behalf and pay you the full €9k or you can keep your car and you'll get there offer minus salvage value which would be €8k.

[Paddy]

Thanks. Problem is, there were only 8 models of this car with the spec in the country in 2011 but according the the Renenue's VRT calculator that model is about 3K more than the insurance say. It's on the log book as the model it is, but there isn't really any examples of that model for sale! Not from the same year anyway!

[RossYB]

Ah okay, Not sure how you'd proceed then, Not sure if they'll allow accept UK models+ VRT as a price guide to replace it?

Just out if interest I ran a Cat-C through Ros.ie, OMSP is €5,194..... Insurance offer was actually €7,500. (Realistic selling price was €4k/€5k max!)


I'm nearly sure there's someone on here who deal with insurance... BMW318tds?

[eddiem74]

My wife wrote off our 2008 E92 320i a couple of years back.

My learnings:

- don't accept the first offer
- decide what you will accept within reason, don't be greedy
- hopefully the car is not under insured
- do your research on similar cars on any car website you can
- show any differences in mileage, spec, condition, price with regard to your car
- use the revenue's OMSP as 1 piece of data
- check with a few dealers what is realistic to expect
- see if same dealers would be willing to put something in writing as to the value (they might if they are getting business from you later)
- compile all of your data into a spreadsheet or similar to help your case and send it to them

In my case the fact the car was a BMW, with extras, good condition,etc... I felt the claims settlement person I was dealing with understood and it was not the average joe car everyone has. When I made may case we managed to secure a few thousand extra and to be honest I felt I could have pushed them even a little more, but in the end we needed to get another car sorted and the offer we had was good enough to allow us do that so we took it.

Best of luck getting sorted.

[mac7]

Happened to a buddy of mine assessor offered 2k under value of similar spec cars on the forecourt. His answer was as a cash buyer he could buy the car at the assessors valuation . After a bit of arguing he finally settled on a higher price but still short of the forecourt price.
As previously said don't accept the first offer and fight your corner, hope it works out for you

[Valdelisbmw]

get copy or paper confirmed its value on revenue site . and tell them to found same condition car ,and better few of them for this price .and ask why and where they have got that it cost less if official todays value is much higher .

[Paddy]

Do I contact the assessor directly or contact the insurance company to discuss the amount? I have a print out from revenue's site stating the OMSP for this model and have contacted a dealer to try get written confirmation of this model and spec. We don't want to be greedy just want what is correct.

Sent from my WT19i using Tapatalk 2

[Valdelisbmw]

just ring insurance company with claim number and ask who u can to deal with ,i think it should be another phone number directly to claim departament

[eddiem74]

In our case the claims person who called and gave us their offer was who we then dealt with. OMSP may not be enough you really need to do a better job than they do in researching an acceptable value, that's what it comes down to.