A 4x4 hit my car today :(

[placey]

as regards stripping bits - i'd start straight away. if it's written off then you'll want them off and kept and if it's repaired it will save bodyshop labour costs which is in your favour. if the insurance company questions it you can say it was planned work anyway - but this shouldn't be a problem because it's still your property to do with as you please until the insurance company actually write it off when it's theirs... and they can have what's left the day they write it off!

even if you end up buying it back and fixing it you'll still want it stripped.

paul

[Adam318i]

Ok, thanks for the advice Paul.

I think im gona leave it as it is for now and take it to the body shop tomorow, they'll see how mint the interior is and the rest of the car in regards to rust etc, i'll tell them that there is no way you can right a car like this off and hope they see my point of view.

I hope one of them has a soft spot for E30's.

I they decide then that the cost is to much and are saying its a right off no matter what, i'll drive home and rip it apart.

Adam

[320Touring]

i'd get a couple of quotes from independant places that your ins approves..

seen some bad reports of BMW dealership repairs, on threads here!!

defo a car worth fighting for!!

and dont let them get away with writing it off!

[zaust]

as long as knowone was hurt and it looks like an easy repair

if they do a cat c write off on it then u buy it back for fifty quid and put it back on the road no questions .

[bennyp]

dont forget that technically the insurance company should leave you in the same [Ԛ£Ã”šÃ‚£] position that you were in before their (third party) client hit your car. That is their obligation.

If the car is written off you can buy it back off them for peanuts, that would be a cat C or D, so its no problem to legally put back on when / if it has / had been written off.

you'll be fine dude, work the insurance companies lots

[Rich_W]

They've tightened up the rule on buying back a written off car. Not sure of the specifics, but I understand that unless you are a registered dismantler, they wont let you nowadays.

Hope it all works out in your favour. Though I would be surprised if they choose to repair it. Proper Wounder!

[bennyp]

generally if the car / motorcycle is a cat C or D ( cosmetic or uneconomical to repair ) you can purchase it back but will probably need a new MOT and an engineers report to reinsure it. It is only cat A or B's that can never be put back on the road ( thats my understanding )

Adam318i's should deffo be cat C or D but may well be mended.....

Adam318i be very very nice to the insurance assesor that comes to check your car, as its his decision!!

[E30BeemerLad]

benny P - you are correct about the Cat A & B being the scenarios where you can't buy back.

Adam - don't want to put a real dampner on things fella but you could be in for a really rough ride with the other bloke's insurers.

I am a lawyer and work for a specialist firm that deal with insurance claims, we get them referred straight from the insurers so we don't ambulance chase before anyone puts that one forward!

As the bloke in the 4x4 had blacked out, his insurers may not pay out your claim/ reimburse your excess and your insurers their outlay. Reason being that if he blacked out having no previous health issues, he has not been negligent. To pursue him you have to establish that it was his negligent driving that caused the accident. It is the same when someone has a heart attack at the wheel and leaves the road hitting other vehicles/property. If the person who has the heart attack has a clean bill of health and it was not foreseable, they are not negligent and their insurers will stiff you.

Your only hope here is that he had health problems and had not taken medication etc, or had been banned by DVLA due to medical condition. That way he is negligent.

I would recommend you speak to your insurers quickly and see if they have had an admission of liability from his insurers, otherwise it could be a lengthy battle.

If you want any more specific advice PM me. Same for any other zoners with accident / injury claims.

best of british!

[Jhonno]

but surely seeing as he was the one that hit Adam's car regardless of blacking out or not it is his fault and as such his insurers responsibility to repair Adam's car?!

[Rich_W]

IF thats true. Then it just sums up Insurance Companies!

Utter wankers, you pay out thousands of pounds over your lifetime. And when you need they're help....

[Jesus325iTouring]

benny P - you are correct about the Cat A & B being the scenarios where you can't buy back.

Adam - don't want to put a real dampner on things fella but you could be in for a really rough ride with the other bloke's insurers.

I am a lawyer and work for a specialist firm that deal with insurance claims, we get them referred straight from the insurers so we don't ambulance chase before anyone puts that one forward!

As the bloke in the 4x4 had blacked out, his insurers may not pay out your claim/ reimburse your excess and your insurers their outlay. Reason being that if he blacked out having no previous health issues, he has not been negligent. To pursue him you have to establish that it was his negligent driving that caused the accident. It is the same when someone has a heart attack at the wheel and leaves the road hitting other vehicles/property. If the person who has the heart attack has a clean bill of health and it was not foreseable, they are not negligent and their insurers will stiff you.

Your only hope here is that he had health problems and had not taken medication etc, or had been banned by DVLA due to medical condition. That way he is negligent.

I would recommend you speak to your insurers quickly and see if they have had an admission of liability from his insurers, otherwise it could be a lengthy battle.

If you want any more specific advice PM me. Same for any other zoners with accident / injury claims.

best of british!

These insurers can be cnuts,this scenario happened to someone in my local town,bloke had heart attack at wheel and went straight into his Astra GSI which was parked in a bay,insurers wouldn't pay up!
Still,I believe you can sue him though so alls not lost even if the insurers won't pay up.

[Zayyan]

glass shattered over the whole car and the police man just sweeped it off with a broom

How fcuking stupid can you get?!

Re suing him, you can imagine some guy in his hospital bed having just pulled through after a heart attack or whatever, waking to up to hear he's gonna be sued for nearly dying

[zaust]

benny P - you are correct about the Cat A & B being the scenarios where you can't buy back.

Adam - don't want to put a real dampner on things fella but you could be in for a really rough ride with the other bloke's insurers.

I am a lawyer and work for a specialist firm that deal with insurance claims, we get them referred straight from the insurers so we don't ambulance chase before anyone puts that one forward!

As the bloke in the 4x4 had blacked out, his insurers may not pay out your claim/ reimburse your excess and your insurers their outlay. Reason being that if he blacked out having no previous health issues, he has not been negligent. To pursue him you have to establish that it was his negligent driving that caused the accident. It is the same when someone has a heart attack at the wheel and leaves the road hitting other vehicles/property. If the person who has the heart attack has a clean bill of health and it was not foreseable, they are not negligent and their insurers will stiff you.

Your only hope here is that he had health problems and had not taken medication etc, or had been banned by DVLA due to medical condition. That way he is negligent.

I would recommend you speak to your insurers quickly and see if they have had an admission of liability from his insurers, otherwise it could be a lengthy battle.

If you want any more specific advice PM me. Same for any other zoners with accident / injury claims.

best of british!

Bought mine back for Ԛ£7.00p CAT B agreed less than a month ago ..

[Simon13]

that is possibly the worst place to be hit, will be a bugger for them to sort that!

[Adam318i]

Ok well thanks for your advice and E30BeemerLad, i'll ring up my insurers tomorow to see if his have admitted fault!

I hope they have.

I'll let you know what the body shop class it as, and if its repaireble.

Thanks, Adam

[E30BeemerLad]

Zaust - I'm really not sure that could have been a cat B if the insurer let you buy it back. The categories of salvage were devised by insurers and the reasons were to prevent people from putting back on the road vehicles with excessive structural damage and also to stop people ringing cars.

The only people who can buy cat A&B salvage is licensed salvage dealers, so I presume you are one! If you're not, you will probably never be able to insure the car when you get it back on the road.

Insurers now have decent IT links with shared databases. I had a client recently who had an old B reg Audi coupe which was written off in 2003. He was allowed to retain the salvage as he claimed directly from the third party insurers. It was classed as cat B. In september last year he got a letter from his present insurers saying they were withdrawing cover in 14 days as the database linked with the motor insurers database had noticed the car was cat b and insured.

I was instructed to get to the bottom of it, basically he is unable to insure the car now, despite it being in mint condition and having passed 2 MOTs since it was written off and repaired. No insurer will touch it because it is cat b. I am debating suing the third party insurers for allowing him to retain cat b salvage when they were the ones that inspected it. But at the end of the day, the car should not be on the road, so he has had the benefit of 2 years more use out of it than he should. The insurers are not prepared to revise the salvage category now either, despite the professional repair, the car is apparently almost concourse condition.

The legal surgery continues....

JesusTouring... You would still not succeed against the other bloke even if you just sued him personally as that's what happens when you are suing the insurers, we issue proceedings against the other driver and if we succeed against them, having put their insurers on notice beforehand, then they are obliged under sections 151 & 152 of the road traffic act to satisfy any judgment against their policyholder.

To succeed in a claim against another driver who was blacked out, suffered a seizure/heart attack, epileptic fit etc, you have to establish that their driving was negligent. If you are not in charge of your faculties when leaving the road etc you cannot be held negligent. The only way you get a win in these circumstances is if you can establish that the other driver should not have been driving, in which case it was due to their negligence of getting behind the wheel that was the cause. The only way you get home with that argument is getting a medical expert to examine their medical records etc.

Had a case a few years ago. I was representing a bus company, 52 seater coach on an outing full of kids. An oncoming vehicle veered into a head on collision. The driver had suffered a fatal heart attack and was dead at the scene. Bus driver had 2 broken legs and quite a lot of the kids were injured. Other bloke's insurers denied liability because of the heart attack. But we won as the other bloke's missus put her foot in it at his inquest and said he often forgot to take his medication and that she often warned him about how he tended to wander across the road quite a bit when driving.

Adam - if you have got legal expenses insurance as part of your cover, they should put you in touch with solicitors who will fight to recover your excess and other unisured losses. Start keeping a record of your expenses as you will need to provide receipts etc for any expenses you want to reclaim.
Don't be surprised if your insurers say either the other lot are denying liability or haven't had a report of the incident yet if the bloke is in hospital.

The law is an ass, but it keeps me out of mischief and my 325 in fuel!

[greg325]

i feel sory for her

[RJB6]

Sorry about the car mate.Looks like another one will be going to the graveyard. I know how you feel I've been there.The insurancers tried to right one of mine off,wouldn't even let me buy it back.But after alot of telephone calls and arguements about the value I fineally got them to change their minds and have the car repaired.I have a mate that could repair it for you,he's doing all the work on mine,he's back off of hols next week.He does a fantastic job,if you get stuck with the insurance and want to pay for it yourself pm me.If you decide to take the money,strip everything off the car because it won't be the insurance that pick it up it will be one of their contracted brakers.Glad you and the GF are ok.

[bennyp]

most insurance companies are plonkers as they are only interested in making money...

but sadly it pays my wages,

good luck with getting your car sorted.

[Adam318i]

Well im pissed off now, just went to the body shop and he told me that its gona be around 3K to get everything done, pretty much a right off he said

I dont know what to do really, i'll wait for my insurance to ring me and see what they decide it is and how much they'll give me for it.

All there gona see is a H-reg E30 with 91,000 miles on the clock, what do you think i should take as a minimum?

Im not very happy at the moment.

Adam

[MISSY30]

I really feel for you Adam, it's not fair that you end up worse off when it wasn't your fault at all, I hope the situation gets better.

[Daryll]

Adam, gutted for you mate....I hope the insurance company look after you though I really do.

[E30BeemerLad]

Adam, for a rough guide on what the insurers will give you for the total loss (write off) i would have a look on www.parkers.co.uk , as this is an older car, you may have to pay a small fee/subscribe.Alternatively, go to WH Smith and look in parkers guide ( free of charge!)

The figures in there will largely be in the same ball park as what your insurers will come back with.

All your insurers are obliged to do is pay you the "market value" of your car, which is usually reflected in what is says in Parkers guide and Glass's Guide.

I would assume your insurers will now want to send out one of their engineers/ assessors to look at the car. Depending on what category of salvage they put the car in, will depend on whether you are allowed to keep the car or whether they insist on disposing of the salvage (see my previous posting about salvage categories)

I am guessing here, but I would reckon they will value the car aroundԚ£1500. I recall you said you have an excess in the region of Ԛ£600. So if they pay you out Ԛ£1500, they will deduct the Ԛ£600 from that. If you are allowed to keep the car, the engineer will have placed a salvage value on it of perhaps Ԛ£50-Ԛ£100, so that would be deducted also. Here comes the nasty bit though.....

If you are paying for your insurance in instalments, they will collect in all the outstanding monies before paying you the final write off figure. Usually they offset how much you still owe them from the write off figuure, so using my example of the car being worth Ԛ£1500 and assuming you still owed them Ԛ£200 in premiums and were allowed to keep the damaged car, worth say Ԛ£100, you will only get from your insurance company Ԛ£600 (Ԛ£1500 value - Ԛ£600 excess - Ԛ£200 outstanding premiums - Ԛ£100 salvage value) A bit shocking eh!

Your biggest struggle is going to be recovering your Ԛ£600 excess from the other bloke's insurers. If you can't get this back from him because of the legal loophole I said yesterday, then your insurers will face the same problems recoving their outlay. This will therefore mean your no claims discount will go up the wall because despite the accident not being your fault, your insurers have paid out and have nobody to recover from. Similar to how you lose your NCD after a theft claim.

In some circumstances, it makes more sense to not claim under your own policy and pursue a claim directly from the third party insurers.

What I would do is hassle your insurers like mad to see if they have spoken to the other bloke's insurers and see if they have accepted liability. If the other bloke's insurers have accepted liabiliy, I would consider telling your insurers you don't want to claim from them and get the details of the name, address, policy/claim number for the other bloke's insurers and get in touch with them and pursue your claim directly from them. Asking them to send an engineer to inspect your car.

If it worked out this way you would get - the value of your car in full, without having to pay your excess and you would not lose your NCD. You may still not get to keep your car if it is placed in salvage category A or B.

Hope this helps fella. Like I said before, if you want any further help, PM me. I would be happy to ring the insurers concerned and sort out what I can.

If you do have legal expenses insurance with your cover, then your insurers should put you in touch with a specialist law firm like I work for, who will do all the mud slinging for you.

[paulj]

I had a prang in feb, was alot smaller than that (O/S WING, BONNET AND NEW BUMPER) bmw charged Ԛ£2350 to repair it + i paid a bit for some xtras. good luck mate i hope they fix it for u on the insurance

[Moofles]

Insurance total loss categories here:

http://www.wcsauto.com/salvage/categories/

zaust as mentioned, your cannot be a cat b...i thought you had given up on that shell anyway, though?

[Jesus325iTouring]

It's just occured to me,is it possible,in this situation you could say "lets not bother to claim on the insurance"
Repair the car yourself,might cost you a few quid,but if your cars worth saving then its worth it.
If the car then hasn't been involved in an insurace claim would i be right to say that it won't be registered as a write off?
It maybe too late in Adams case,but TBH,i think If i get a small knock from someone,i think I would rather sort it myself.
Is there small print which says we have to report any kind of knock to the insurace company?
I'm only talking damage to the extent of Adams car,nothing more serious than that,bigger damage and I wouldn't be wanting to drive it anyhow.

[Adam318i]

I didnt have a choice really as police where already there and had my Reg number etc.

Just got a letter from the people dealing with my case asking for a detailed describtion of what happened.

Well i didnt see i thing and have only heard what had happened from the police and witnesses, so should i just right that down ,that i was told what had happpened?

Adam

[Jesus325iTouring]

Might be worth going to the police and getting a statement from them I suppose,i can't see what else you can do if you didn't actually see what happened.

[Davenotouring]

It might seem like overkill, but I'd consider getting legal advice incase you accidently write something which could drop you in it?

I'm not saying you will, but it is a possibility for anyone to write something which could be misinterpreted.

Good luck! Hope you get a full payout!

[E30BeemerLad]

Adam - the fact that the police were involved does not prejudice your position as far as the insurance company are concerned. You have a duty to inform your insurers if your vehicle is involved in a collision with another vehicle, even if you do not wish for your insurers to pay you out. It will be in the small print somewhere. But many people often do not involve their insurers, especially if the amount of damage is minor as the excess ends up covering most of the costs.

If your car is never inspected by the insurance company then there is no way it can be categorised as far as it's current condition is concerned and therefore it would not end up on any database, like HPI. All you would have to do to continue insuring it is put it through an MOT. In your situaiton, if you intend to keep the vehicle and not put a claim through your insurers, I would just get the car checked over properly by someone who knows what they are doing, that way you can tell if there is any point repairing the car and avoid patching up a death trap or throwing stupid amounts at the car for sentimental reasons instead of looking for another car.

If your insurers have asked you for a detailled description then best just tell them what you know, which is what you were told by the police at the end of the day. That way you are telling the truth and are basically making a statement of what you are aware of at this moment in time. At the time you send them the completed claim form/ description, just put a covering letter in with it saying you are unsure at this stage whether you want to claim for your vehicle from your policy at this stage and that you are more interested to learn if the insurers of the 4X4 driver are going to accept liability. As doing this will avoid you having to pay a costly excess and possibly end up with a ruined no claims discount if the insurers of the other bloke don't accept blame

Is it actually your insurance company who have asked you for more info or is it a claims management company? What are the people called who have written to you?

At the end of the day, you are perfectly entitled to request the identity of the other blokes insurers and advise them you are seeking to claim from them directly, but this could be a long messy process where you will most certainly end up needing a solicitor, unless they accept blame immediately. Also, if you claim directly from the other bloke's insurers, they will still want to inspect your car before paying you a penny as they won't want to just pay you a few hundred quid to shut you up as they may think you have little damage to your car and that you're trying to scam a few quid from them.

Bottom line here Adam, you paid for fully comp cover, you may as well use the policy and get paid what you can, understanding that your car will more than likely be written off and you risk not being allowed to keep the car if the engineer places it in salvage category a or b. Also you will have to pay the excess and risk not getting this back if the other bloke has a cast iron case that he had never keeled over at the wheel before and had no health problems at the time.

If you need any more info let me know.

[Adam318i]

E30BeemerLad, it is the claims people that want to know more information on the form they have sent me.

The people dealing with my case are called Irwin Mitchell Solicitors and are based in Sheffield.

Since letting my insrance know about the accident i havnt heard anything from them or had a call from the solicitors yet.

Im going to ring the solicitors on monday as thats when they are next open.

I'll ask them for the others drivers details and also if he has admitted fault, im currently putting my car back to its origninal condition incase they send anyone to inspect it.

Im also going to ask them if i can get a quote on the cost of repiars from a local independant BMW garage who i take my car to for all the work done to it.

Is i think he'll be able to do it for alot less than 3K.

Thanks for all your help.

Adam

EDIT: i have already paid the excess of Ԛ£670 as my insurers told me i would be able to claim this back off his insurers. They said it would speed up the process of claiming against him.

[Andy325i]

but the exsaust is a half S/S scorpion one, and a dont have a std one laying about

Hi Adam, sorry to hear about the car, glad ur both ok!

When we converted mine to a 6 cyl we kept the exhaust for the 318i, if it hasn't been thrown out and you have to go down that road, then by all means its yours mate, will check today for you

[Adam318i]

Thanks alot mate, im just thinking when the bm place took the exsuast off mine he keeps everything, as the zorst was only a year old so im hoping he stall has it.

I'll let you know

Adam

[Karan]

i have a spare 318i zorst too if u need it lemme know

[E30BeemerLad]

Adam - the solicitors you are in touch with should sort all of this for you and let you know what the other side are up to. They are a specialist firm like the one I work for. The sooner you are able to get any paperwork back to them, the sooner they will be able to get cracking.

Hope it all goes as well as it can in the circumstances!

Lee