Insurance Stress - Advice Please

[Jaxster]

Hi

I recently wrote off my Mazda MX5 (with the help of a car of boy racers) and am now in a quandry with my motor insurer and GAP insurer.

The car, a black MX5 1.8i 58/08 Option Pack was purchased in September 2008 and because my husband and I bought one each, managed to get the price right down to £14,500. Took out GAP insurance to cover me back to invoice value. Feeling nice and secure at this point.

All the GAP paperwork says "we will cover the difference between your insurance SETTLEMENT and the amount you paid for your vehicle". Now I find that my insurer is offering £12,900 for the car, but the GAP insurer is saying they go by Glasses Guide in determining market value and they think it should be £13,630.

I have already got the motor insurer up from £12,500 to £12,900 and their justification for this price is that they found a similar spec/model of MX5 from a car supermarket website at £13,599. The car is red (which I hate - mine was black), is slightly younger (58/09) and just under 5,000 miles (mine was 9,000). Literally every advert I can find for a black MX5 of similar age/mileage etc is around £14k+ - bearing in mind I negotiated hard for mine so I would have paid quite a lot more if I hadn't had the leverage of buying two at the same time (came into some money - that won't happen again).

So where do I go from here? Am I entitled to request a valuation based on the same colour as mine? Black soft top MX5's are far more popular than red and I don't want any other colour. Do I go to the FSA or FOS and state my case? Do I push the GAP insurer for misrepresentation on their website that states insurance settlement but actually means "the market value they determine"?

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

[The Tea Boy]

hi sorry to hear of your plight with this.
I cant really offer any decent advice but you may be better to post this in SP&L as there are plenty of people there with better knowledge than me!

Hope that helps for you

regards
matt

[SJobson]

I'm sure they'd offer you less if it were a grim colour, but doubt there's any significant value difference between red and black.

The gap insurer and your own insurer should be fighting it out, anyway - you should just expect to get a cheque for what you paid and it doesn't matter how they apportion the value.

[Jaxster]

Thanks for all your advice. I argued with GAP and the insurers and produced evidence supporting the value of my vehicle, and made the point that I expected to be able to purchase from a Mazda dealership, not a car supermarket. They finally caved in and offered £13,600 for mine which bridges the difference between their original offer and what the GAP insurers valued it at. So all in all, now happy that the whole invoice value is covered. My biggest learning experience on this has been to always decline the first two offers and keep fighting. I also threatened FSA and FOS and fully intended to follow through on that so maybe it helped. Either way, the whole fiasco is over and my stress levels have reverted to normal levels! Thanks again. A real help.

[Odie]

When my car got damaged and was fighting for my car to be repaired rather than written off (should have gone with it being written off tbh) they offered me less than it was worth, I just turned around and said, "instead of payment i will happily take a car the same type, age, mileage & spec" they pulled their fingers out at that point.

[OnlyMX5ives]

I've had this a few times.

I simply tell them that I want a car the same as mine was.

I should be able to go to and buy one immediately within a 30 mile radius.

How much will that take ?

Find an ad and send it them.

Last time they offered me a pittance and I said I'll give you 10X that, go and buy me ten of them...

They said we can't.

I said EXACTLY !

I was then sent a cheque for the full amount.