Insurance - car valuation

So basically, am I obliged to provide the insurers with a receipt or disclose how much I paid? Because I thought I would be offered a market rate that would enable me to buy another identical car.

What you paid is none of their business. You need not have paid anything for it by way of cash anyway. It could have been a car for car swap or numerous other types of transaction. I swapped an old Peugeot of mine once with a friend for a machine that he had which I wanted plus him doing some repair work on another car of mine. Coincidentally the Peugeot then also got written off a year later when someone pulled out in front of him but that's another story.

A tip for future reference though. When you get an insurance quote and have to estimate the value of your car be very much on the high side. In the event of a total loss you are unlikely to get offered more than you put down on the quote form. The dealer price is the minimum you should be looking at, not the private sale price so you should have said at least £6,500.

Send them copies of ads for similar spec vehicles with a letter pointing out how much the vehicle will cost to replace.

sPoniX

No.

Let them make their offer , and in the mean time do some research finding adverts for identical spec cars to yours so you can justify why you need more money to put you back in the postition you were pre-accident.

MAybe they are just trying to establish ownership, rather than purchase price?

My insurance company didn't seem to worry too much about the value of my car. It cost me =A32100, but for the first year we value it at =A32500. For the 2nd year I said that it's probably worth less than that now, and he said don't worry!

When I aplpied for my insurance, a bit of the information said that the calue was only used for underwriting purposes, and doesnt affect the value of your claim.

All that means is that you aren't insuring for a fixed value i.e. they'll happily pay out less if the car is now worth less. It's very unlikely they'll pay out more because they've only been covering you up to a risk level of the value you put down on the quote. Plenty of people have been caught out by that when insuring household contents if the insured value turns out to be less than the actual value of items in the house. The assessor comes round, values the stolen property at £10k, the remaining property at £30k and then you find you are only covered for £20k in the policy. They don't pay out the full £10k just because you are insured for at least that much. They say your cover was half the value of the items in total so they only pay out half of the actual claim - £5k.

As regards car insurance there is no way the insurer can know the value of your car in advance just from the year and model. It could be in A1 condition or an absolute dog which is why they ask you. More cover costs more money so if you tell them it's worth £6k when it's really worth £8k you'll only get £6k if you write it off. In practice the estimated value rarely changes the quote so there's never any harm in overvaluing but you take a great risk in doing the opposite. Safest bet is to take the dealer price and add a grand for good measure. By all means ask if the cost has changed for the higher value and then take a view on it but it's unlikely to.

You can also get caught out on cars that appreciate in value rather than drop. Classic cars back in the boom period 10 to 15 years or so ago were a case in point. You could easily find that you'd been insuring an MGB Roadster or early Jag for less than its current worth if you hadn't changed the policy for many years.

That was my reasoning as well. For standard value cars (below £20,000 ISTR) it's just an excuse for the insurer to reduce your claim by getting someone who doesn't necessarily know the value to incriminate themselves, as it were.

I was told some time ago that the price starts to have a large impact on the premium only once you get above the £20,000 mark, which sounds reasonable, below that it's 3rd party liability that is likely to be largest element of any claim.

Daytona

So basically, am I obliged to provide the insurers with a receipt or disclose how much I paid? Because I thought I would be offered a market rate that would enable me to buy another identical car.

TIA

The value paid out should not be affected by the amount paid for the car. A "good" (ie not cheap no frills) policy should pay out as follows:

• A1 "Glasses" book value to replace the car. They may shave a little off initially in order to leave room for a second offer.

• They would only deduct on the basis of stated fact - ie known mileage, evidence of previous accident damage by claims assessors. They cannot just "assume" that your car is average or that the state of the car is reflected in the price.

I bought my first car - an 8 year old Metro - covered in rust and with torn seats - in 1995 for £300. It was written off a year later. Endsleigh very kindly paid me £1500 for it. They could easily have got away with paying less, but automatically paid the "book" value without any had evidence to suggest that it was not an A1 car.

ISTR reading that Glasses will have a lower A1 value than the "book" price in Parkers etc. because Glasses is based on final sale price (ie after all the haggling), whereas the others are based on screen prices. The car that says £6500 on your dealer's forecourt may go for as little as £6k once someone has haggled or been given a generous p/ex allowance. It would be shown as £6500 in Parkers but £6000 in Glasses. I may be incorrect on this though.

Russell