My poor Z4 - insurance - settlement

W

Warming

Member
Unfortunately the Z has sustained quite a bit of damage, underneath and at the rear, having hit standing water and spun backwards into trees and a ditch. Thankfully no one else was involved and miraculously I'm fine. I'm very thankful for the kind folk that stopped to call 999 and make sure I was ok and to help to arrange vehicle recovery (not as easy as it should be due to reduced office hours and being on hold for a long time!).

There must be a fair bit of damage underneath, the rear on one side is dented up against a tree and one of the front wheels is bent at an angle off the suspension.


Looking for some advice on what to do with the claim settlement.

I've just received an inital "day one offer" of £3500.
The sub-contracted (accident assessement / settlement?) company have given this figure before starting any vehicle inspection, and have said the offer is to speed up the settlement process, with the figure based on glass guide book value.


The guy representing the company has said if I don't accept this they will carry out an inspection, and the subsequent offer could be higher or lower than the initial offer.


- any idea how much a 2005 3.0 roadster with 130k miles is worth? Would you take £3500? The insurance company have said based on the description of the damage, it's likely to a write-off.

I've just gone on compare the market and the automatically filled in value is £3830.
 
Unless you have a higher agreed value with your insurance company , I’d say £3500 is a good offer for a 130k Z4
 
usual response is to go on ebay, autotrader and any other car sales sites (facebook marketplace, pistonheads, gumtree) and get asking prices for comparable cars.

when a honda civic i owned was written off, the initial offer was £1000. i replied, saying it was not possible to buy the car again for that price, and sent across examples of other cars for sale. They then upped the settlement to £2000. again i rejected it (the examples i'd found were selling for £2,400), so they upped it to £2,200, which i accepted.

so if you can find evidence of cars in similar conditions selling for more, then send them in. however, i'd say that £3500 was a reasonable offer.. you might be able to get a couple hundred quid more if you're lucky, but i'd be surprised if you got more than £4,000.
 
My daughter was unfortunately involved in an accident last week.

Different car, 2016 plate SEAT Ibiza. I spoke to the insurance company and body shop allocated assessment/repair.

Body shop asked if I could send detailed photo’s and they assessed from that. Wrote the car off as structural door pillar damage. Informed the insurance company and then me within 45 minutes of receiving my pictures.

Insurance company came back next day with the written offer. Was more than ok but on principal daughter went back and said she wanted to discuss their valuation. They said they went solely by Glasses guide and that was the valuation full stop.

Firstly they’d already generated the payment of their “first offer” and it was on its way. Made her points asked them to increase their offer and they did by £240. They then said they’d generate a second payment for the £240. Money in her account in under a week from accident date.

The car was bought from a main dealer in January 2020 and in my opinion paid really strong money for it but it was the exact car/colour/spec she wanted. Her settlement was £845 MORE than she paid then

Flip side is finding a reply is proving challenging and will be more expensive than her settlement.

Using Glasses the valuation and without a pre agreed valuation it’s probably pretty good but worth a punt at trying to see if they’ll increase slightly
 
Worth enquiring whether you've got anything that's more desirable in the car? That may increase their offer? For example sat nav? :)
 
Anything on there from the options list? Expensive wheels electric memory seats etc. MUST be from the BMW options list then they can't say you have added them and not declared them. "they were on when I bought it, as they were genuine I assumed the car came with them from new" :thumbsup:
 
Jl-c said:
Anything on there from the options list? Expensive wheels electric memory seats etc. MUST be from the BMW options list then they can't say you have added them and not declared them. "they were on when I bought it, as they were genuine I assumed the car came with them from new" :thumbsup:
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Will depend on the insurer.

They may not penalise you for not declaring a optional extra that had been retrofitted without your knowledge - but they may refuse to increase their pay out for anything retrofitted. After all, you probably didn't pay any more for the car with the retrofits - and if you did, you obviously knew they were there and were worth more.

The argument didn't work for me when I had a little scrape about a year after I'd bought the car. I had to pay for the reapplication of the BMW PPF as it wasn't on the build sheet, so was an undeclared addition. The original owner had his local dealer install it about 6 months after he bought the car.

However, they didn't try to say my insurance was void due to not declaring it, just that they'd not pay for undeclared, non-factory parts, as the premium was based on a standard car.

I've even had an insurance-approved bodyshop try to fob me off with 'original' tyres when mine were damaged - but I really didn't want crappy Conti M3 tyres swapped in for the Michelin PSS it was wearing beforehand. Wasn't much of an argument, as the price was about the same.
 
ph001 said:
NEVER ACCEPT THE FIRST OFFER!
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My Z was written off (cosmetic damage to 2 panels after a Range Rover changed lanes without looking); the first offer was £500 higher than what I paid for the car 6 months earlier! I ended up taking the 'keep the car, fix it yourself and get a lower pay out' deal.
 
I'd bite their hand off at that offer :lol: that's a good price for an old car that isn't really worth much these days.
 
ph001 said:
NEVER ACCEPT THE FIRST OFFER!
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Doesn't always work. Had a car stolen a couple of years ago and their first offer was their only offer. It was actually £2,000 more than I owed on the car, so we ended up quids in.
 
£3500 sounds like a good offer given the mileage. My zed was written off in March and I was offered ~£2400. The insurer refused to budge or look at advertised sales as they based their market value off 2 valuation guides. I tried a third valuation guide from a company called Cazana - their estimation was ~£3200. I've taken up the matter with the FOS - They still haven't reviewed the case. The insurers settlement offer wouldn't have been enough to purchase the lowest priced damaged 2.2 zed at the time of offer!

I would suggest checking Cazana for a valuation as they were higher than alternative guides in my case. They are also recognised by the FOS. Certain insurers may not consider advertised car sales on websites and so if £3500 is around or above valuation guides I suggest accepting to avoid the hassle.
 
ben g said:
ph001 said:
NEVER ACCEPT THE FIRST OFFER!
Click to expand...

Doesn't always work. Had a car stolen a couple of years ago and their first offer was their only offer. It was actually £2,000 more than I owed on the car, so we ended up quids in.
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Agreed. We were offered £2950 for our old Zafira. I was expecting under a grand. If I’d of gone back their value probably would have gone down.
 
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