write off value for the insurance
 

My bike has been declaired a write off given that it only cost me 1500 and the parts alone are coming in at 2400. The thing is do i tell my insurance that its worth 1500 or should i push for more because there is no way im going to be able to get an equivilent bike for the same money.

Its a 99 in blue with a full fairing and a remus exhaust and only had 16K on the clock when i got it and was pretty much mint. it did however have 5 previous owners. I got it off a guy whos wife had banned him from ridding after he binned a rs250 and put himself in the hospital and i only had 1500 so he took it even though he had wanted 2000+ for it. also got the deal cause it was a mate of a mate rather than buying off some random guy via an add.

People have been talking about the book price for a vehical as being what you should expect to recieve but i dont know anyway of working this out. If anyone could link me to a site where they can tell me what sort of value my bike had.

cheers guys.

http://www.parkers.co.uk/ has good valuations... don't tell them how much you paid, but IF you told them how much its worth when applying for insurance, you wont get anything over that, or probably even close to it, insurance companies aren't in it to give u money.

they should pay out "market Value"

u can only hope they will

did you state a value when you insured it?

They'll usually try and pay as little as they can get away with; don't be surprised if you are offered even less than £1500. Gather evidence (biketrader or MCN are useful) of how much similar bikes cost at the moment - obviously only pick the expensive ones - you want to give evidence of a higher value! If it comes to a dispute between what you think it was worth and what they offer, you can submit these and it'll get you a better offer.

I had 4 cheques from my last claim:

1 first offer, too low
2 more money when I disputed and sent in the ads I'd gathered
3 more money when I asked for their head guy's details and wrote him a letter explaining why it wasn't enough, their liability in their contract, etc. to put me back in the same position I was in before the accident
4 final amount when it still wasn't enough and I said I'd liek to go to arbitration (costs them a lot of money and hassle) and they paid me to go away.

This was on a bike bought in winter and crashed in summer, so they had to pay me out more than I'd paid for the bike, as the value of the bike had gone up. Took about 5 weeks from the 1st to the last cheque (about £800 gained), so not too much hassle for the cash; just be cool and play the game and don't get p$*%ed at them for trying to pay as little as possible at first. Yours might even be one of the good ones who pays out a decent amount right off.

You should get the true value of the bike, depending of course on its pre accidental condition. When I used to be an assessor we would use the Glasses valuations taking into account mileage, condition, pre existing damage etc.

When my Blandit was written off, it was a struggle again I had four offers before I finally got what I was asking for. The insurers finally conceded that it had been incorrectly identified and valued by them and that no engineer had even seen it. The difference between initial offer and final settlement was about £700.

When my SV went down. The assessor who inspected it. Knew my family business and had at one time worked for my father. So no problem with the valuation. 2000 SVs with 16000 on the clock. £2300. I wasn't going to argue as it matched my own valuation.

With guide values, we also used to use the guide for the month when the accident occurred. It was not unusual for there to be a couple of months from the accident to the request for an inspection (Especially when we were brought it as independent engineers, for potential civil claims) So especially then it was the value at the time of the accident that counted.

What he said. What you paid for it has nothing to do with the payout; you could have been given it as a gift/won it as a prize, would that mean they shouldn't pay you a penny? :wink:

As someone else mentioned, use Parkers to get the value. Put it back to stock if you can (sell the aftermarket bits on ebay). If they come back with a silly offer, point out adverts that are nearer the price and that you have a FSH, etc (if you do).

This is a good point, some of them are decent. When my car was written off I got a fair quote from the off. Not a "great" one, but not a p***-take low one either. It was about £100 more than I thought the car was worth and about £500 more than I thought their first offer was likely to be. Needless to say, I accepted straight away and the matter was dealt with very quickly. If only more insurers would learn that it's cheaper for them in the long run to conduct their business this way. :)