Valuing a modified car...

What had you done to the car other than the strut brace in terms of actual nuts and bolts stuff? Stickers etc. tend to be seen as worth naff all by assessors, and I was totally serious when I said that there's generally a limit of Glass' book price that an assessor can pay you for the car, normally 70 something percent (this was assessing for a known name insurance co too, not a tinpot firm). If you want the true value of the car paid to you, you may have to threaten them with the ombudsman, or even actually go to the ombudsman, or get someone to handle the claim for you.

Don't forget the Faberge Egg that was in the glove box that smashed... ;-)

Gonna be hard to prove - the recover company stole the pieces from inside the car.

Market value for a standard one, at a guess.

None of your mods actually added any value to the vehicle, so you'd be

Well it would be with the third parties' insurance company, but you're right.

Point being that the accident wasn't my fault so I'm entitled to a replacement exactly as was...

As far as the resale value of a car goes, you already know the answer to that one; it's normally less than a standard one.

As far as the insurance are concerned, you are extremely unlikely to get any more money for them. It's really one of those things that you need to ask your insurers tho (assuming you haven't already), as each one can have a different policy. Anything here is simply guesswork.

Insurance doesn't work like that though :/

Hmmm, that would kind of work if you were to insist they went out and replaced your car directly.

As it is, I recally you're looking for a cash settlement. Personalised modifications don't add value to the vehicle, so market value is all you'll get.

AIUI, if you told your insurers about any mods and they granted you a policy on those terms, then those mods should be covered. i.e. they should pay out enough money to get an un-modded car and re-do the mods. If on the other hand, you didn't mention any mods to them, then they won't be obliged to replace any of them. This probably applies even when claiming off someone else's policy and it's separate from mods of the type that you are obliged to tell them about.

Cheers,

Colin.

Yup, subject to the policy. Some insurance companies want to know about modifications but explicitly state that they don't insure them, so if you write the car off your alloys are not replaced.

Hmm. Here I'll be claiming off somebody elses' policy. I'll check the Law but common sense* tells me that I'm entitled to either the same back or the means to get the same back.

Seeing as the insurance co. for the third party should be paying out for this, technically you need to agree a value with them for what it would cost to replace or repair the car as is. You'd be going about it the right way working out the costs on every modification to the car, plus the cost of the car. What an assessor should do is get your list of work done to the car, total value, etc and then take a look at the car and see if he thinks it's a fair amount of money. However, it sounds like the damage was primarily to the roof of the car- the assessor could argue that your modifications aren't affected (if they haven't been damaged) and therefore reason that you don't need to replace them - you simply need a new Ka and the cost of labour to get the parts taken from the old one and fitted the to new one. Have you asked anyone if it looks repairable? They might even take a quote for repair work (even if it costs more than the value of the car to get it repaired), agree that yes, that's how much it would cost to repair the car and send you a cheque for that amount.

When my car got hit, the insurance company for the third party didn't even ask me how much the car was worth - as they weren't in a position to write it off - they just sent an assessor out to check how much it'd cost to get the car back to it's condition before the crash.

How are you actually going about getting the third party to pay out for this? Are you claiming through your own insurance, or direct to the third party?

Chris.

Usually the mods are covered, but only to be replaced with standard items.

Altho it has to be said that, when I had the milk float incident, I claimed off the dairy's insurance for some TSW alloys with no problem...

Good point, very good point indeed. I like your style.

Thinking about it, we'd need a new set of Morettesn (one disintegrated heh)

Hmm. That's worth a shot too. The roof is bent as are the A-pillars, only just heh but bent all the same. That's usually considered terminal for the Ka.

But it may be repairable.

Gotcha. This may yet happen.

We're using a claims management type company via the third party insurance company.

Some great tips here!

Milk float?

This wasn't with the car we don't mention, was it? :0

You have to ask yourself.... would you actually want it repaired?

Piss taking aside, I don't think I'd want to rebuild something that's been smacked to that extent.

I've seen pics, doesn't look too bad. Light roll damage means it really wants a shell, making it generally BER but no less safe if the work was done.

If it needs a shell, then it's uneconomical to fix.

I had visions of bits being cut and welded....

You'd be surprised, especially if you're pricing things using the Fiat scale.

Integrale roof skin [1] = £2200 Focus shell = £800. Ka shell - probably cheaper again as they're easier to make.

Me neither; but the cost to repair may be the fairest way to value the car.