Insurance insurance companies Dealing with claims

| Financial Ombudsman for dealing with complaints

TRADESIZE

i work for an inusrer in the complaints dept, but have done several years of total loss claims processing and valuation disputes. belive me you don not want to 'buy it back'. you will then have the hassle of the insurer putting a VIC marker on it- this means you wont be ableto re-tax it until you take it for an inspection at the local DVLA centre not such a big deal but it willalso be put on the motor insurance anto fraud and theft register as a previous total loss and will be registered as a previous write off as part of the vehicles history held at the DVLA. If you ever sell it this means the value will be considerably less than if a wasn't a previous total loss (if will show on HPI as prev total loss if they conclude the claim in that way). They are probably value it at 'market value' hence why its a total loss. unless is a hanging mess (doesn't sound like it is) it probably wouldn't be with its true value. you need to make them re asses the value so the quote doesn't conclude the claim as a total loss. a way to do this is to get them to phone 3 specilat delaers and to make it non biased get them to choose them out of v world/ultra vw mag (send them a copy maybe??) they need to call the 3 dealers describe your bus as best as poss - the delaers will then enlighten them and hopefully the claim will be not concluded as a total loss. another way\or as well is to send them as many ads of T25's of the same conversion/similar as poss to prove the PAV (pre accidnt value) always send any corres by registered post - always insurers are crap at confirming if they have recived stuff!! Always try to getthe name of 1 person and always deal with them! otherwise guarnteed you will get in a right kerfuffle. ALos try telling them you want to log an officel complaint- maybe the complaints handelr can then sort out this mess of a claim! tell them (the complaints dept only) that if they dont sort it satisfcatorliy in the ways I have just suggested you will go to the FOS (finalcial obbudsman service) and once they look at the inusrance compnays file on your case it will cost the insurer £400. If is always worth as politely as possible to threaten them with going to the FOS. The nature of your complaint is that they are writing your camper of not using the true market value. I bet they have just done the usual trick and found the cheapest camper that isn't even the same conversion off autotrader.co.uk and based your value on that. Follow all thsi advice it it shoudl eventually turn out OK. Belive me i have 8 years experince from the inside!! 2 last things cashing your total oss cheque should not consitute full and final settelemnt of your claim (do not sign any forms that ever say that) and ALWAYS arrange for the vehicle to be in your possiesion. it is very easy for the insurer to move it to a salvage agnet at the other end of the country and even tough you can get it back it makes much more of a kerfuffle. if that happens it its not beyond the realms of possibilty that the insurer salvage agnet will move it round their yard with a fork truck and cause a load of extra damage.!!! it is bestthatthe vehicle stays at your house/afrinds house at all times until it gets repaired to avoid this occuring!! sorry thats all complicate hope it helps. who is the insurer? I work for a mainstraem insure but we are more tnan reasonable with specilat vehicle - we always phone 3 specialits and genrally take the middle value and settle at that amount. agreed value is bullshit really it just makes the claim be processed with a bit less faff.