Insurance - Equity Red Star scumbags

Equity Red Star told me last week that I should get an offer today or tomorrow for my bike, a 54 plate, '04 SV650S.

Instead they send a cheque through for £2850.

Yeah, now where's the other £1000? Will be phoning them in a bit but am fuming right now - not even bothering to make an offer and then sending a cheque for way less than the bike is worth. Absolute scumbags...

Sounds like an administrative error.

Do not cash the cheque - send it back recorded delivery and with a strongly-worded letter.

[timwilky]

I had run ins with them on a grossly undervalue valuation on my write off Bandit.

They admitted a cockup in that they had valued it as a naked instead of a faired. Then they admitted that they had not taken into account that the milage was 2000 miles on a 4 year old bike and that that would substantially affect value.

It got to the point where I belived that no engineer had inspected it. I suppose what got them to accept my valuation was when I dropped the bombshell that I had previously been one of their independant engineers providing them with valuations. So result was an extra £1200 on their inital offer.

What they said to me all along was that it was OK for me to cash the cheque and they then drip fed me the extra as they twice reassessed their valuation

Originally Posted by timwilky

What they said to me all along was that it was OK for me to cash the cheque and they then drip fed me the extra as they twice reassessed their valuation

That sounds dodgy to me. If you cash the cheque, they "COULD" claim full and final payment / settlement if they were going to be complete *******s. I would go the Jabba route (much as it pains me to agree with him).

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Scoobs

That sounds dodgy to me. If you cash the cheque, they "COULD" claim full and final payment / settlement if they were going to be complete *******s. I would go the Jabba route (much as it pains me to agree with him).

Like I said, I did get my agreed valuation in the end. but accross 3 cheques

I'm trying to get money out of them at the moment and the offered me 2500 for my 2001 SV with 32000 miles.. and I'm pushing them to 2750 just got to sort the service history.
So keep going on with them, or do what we did and send the adverts from Autotrader with bikes of similar age and millage and say if I want to replace it then this is what I should be paied.

Originally Posted by Scoobs

That sounds dodgy to me. If you cash the cheque, they "COULD" claim full and final payment / settlement if they were going to be complete *******s. I would go the Jabba route (much as it pains me to agree with him).

Last year Red Star paid out on my bike as write off. The covering letter quite clearly stated bank this cheque even if you want to argue about the cost, banking it will not be seen as final acceptance of the offer, just let us know you are disputing value within x days. (Although write off was other party's fault, so you wonder if Red Star are less bothered about paying out more if they re-claim from other insurers).

Liam

Originally Posted by Liam

Last year Red Star paid out on my bike as write off. The covering letter quite clearly stated bank this cheque even if you want to argue about the cost, banking it will not be seen as final acceptance of the offer, just let us know you are disputing value within x days. (Although write off was other party's fault, so you wonder if Red Star are less bothered about paying out more if they re-claim from other insurers).

Liam

I stand corrected and will now shut the **** up!

Called Equity Red Star and explained that I had evidence (lots of bike ads) that my bike was worth about £1000 more than they were offering.

My guess is that when they see the thick sheaf of ads (sent recorded with a sweet covering letter explaining how curious it is that it appears they've valued it at exactly £1000 under the real price, so I'm assuming it's a blatant admin. error on their part) they'll offer a fair bit more, if not the whole whack. I'll keep on pushing - unless they're willing to pay the whole extra £1000 I'll be asking for a lot of the bits of bike back as part of the deal - hugger, R&G's, fender extender, tyres. I doubt they'll be willling to get them off though, so hopefully they'll slap a little extra on top for them. It's all good fun! Thanks to the peeps on here though - if I'd not had some good advice from a few peeps then I'd have no idea what to do after I'd got such a poor offer - now I feel that it's the insurance company who are going to have to do all of the work.

I'll not be cashing the cheque until it's sorted... am actually quite offended that they decided to not bother calling me to make the offer and just sent the cheque... cowards! I do some union work and that's the classic way out most admin/bosses use to try and slip crummy wage rises and the like through - just giving them out and not entering into any dialogue over it

Witness statements are through now, and all back me up, which should speed up the process... I reckon I'm still looking at a minimum 6 months before the money for clothing and injury and the money for the excess comes through...

I would also just like to say that I confirmed with them the value of the bike was as it is 'standard' so if I scrapped it I'd be taking all the extras off. But I'll probably buy it back.