Advice please on settlement for write off.

[Bongo Tong]

Last Sunday my Bongo was damaged in a fire. Not my fault, the car parked behind mine caught on fire and melted the rear of my vehicle.

My Bongo was a 2002 V6 petrol, automatic, with full side conversion (second hand but professionally fitted) and a pull-out Oministor awning. It had 66,000 miles on the clock and I bought it in November 2012, being its first UK owner.

I have been offered £6,963 by my insurer Axa, through Lifesure. I am of course, going to contest this. I have done some research and think that I would need to spend around £10,000 to replace my car.

Please could anyone give me advice about ways to go about this? I will be emailing them with evidence from three ads from three different sources.

Any help will be appreciated.

Bongo Tong

[MountainGoat]

This subject has been discussed before. The consensus of advice was to play hardball, find out how much it would cost to replace your Bongo and never accept the first offer from the insurance company: or the second, or the third and maybe even the fourth until you come to within a whisker of your price.

Tony

[Simon Jones]

If it were me, I would also be sending them the receipt from when you bought it and any additional expenses such as tyres and cambelt as part of your evidence.

Does the policy specifically cover the camper conversion, the awning and other modifications? If they are not mentioned when the policy was taken out then they will just offer you a settlement based on it being a bog standard MPV.

Out of interest, what is the amount you have on the policy as the value of the vehicle? Is it sufficient to cover your anticipated replacement spend? Reason I mention it is that if you put a low figure of say £5000 in an attempt to keep the premiums down, then a policy will never pay out higher than this figure so it's better to err on the high side to allow for this.

[MountainGoat]

True Simon, I always had mine down for £10,000 which was within a whisker of the sum for which I eventually sold it. Makes sense when in a lot of cases the location, position and insurance record together probably have a bigger influence on the premium than the actual value of the vehicle.

Tony

[Bongo Tong]

I have £11,000 on the insurance. But that's not enough to replace it like for like.
BT

[Simon Jones]

One thing in your favour is that as autumn approaches, the prices will come down so you should get more for your money. Another option is to investigate buying it back and then transfer the conversion and other items to the new van. A conversion usually adds more value to a vehicle that it costs so you could get a decent van and chop the bits over.

[MountainGoat]

I would tell them that your acceptance of any offer will be subject to the retention of the conversion items and other goodies as their valuation does not cover these items.

Tony

[mikeonb4c]

Last Sunday my Bongo was damaged in a fire. Not my fault, the car parked behind mine caught on fire and melted the rear of my vehicle.

My Bongo was a 2002 V6 petrol, automatic, with full side conversion (second hand but professionally fitted) and a pull-out Oministor awning. It had 66,000 miles on the clock and I bought it in November 2012, being its first UK owner.

I have been offered £6,963 by my insurer Axa, through Lifesure. I am of course, going to contest this. I have done some research and think that I would need to spend around £10,000 to replace my car.

Please could anyone give me advice about ways to go about this? I will be emailing them with evidence from three ads from three different sources.

Any help will be appreciated.

Bongo Tong

Refer the insurance assessors to a benchmark site like JAL Imports. I doubt they'd get that spec for anything like their offer price.