OEM parts?

[GMB]

22 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

There is just no excuse for this - they know what claim is, why they are still not paid on it?

Because they do not like paying out. Yes, there is no excuse but there is a reason.

The claims I am talking about relate to about £3 million pounds for loss of a lifetime's earnings and care for someone who was in very good health and had a good job in their early 20's. All now gone and needs full time care.

Every week they delay saves them a fortune.

[Localhero]

Unless you have agreed value insurance you will never get back what you think your car is worth and that does not mean just telling the insurers that you think its worth £10k they may even iinclude  that figure on your policy, but you will only get  book price regardless of whatever valuation you put on your car

[Bluemarlin]

My view is that if a part is specified as a direct replacement for an OEM part, and not designed to alter the perfomance of a car, then it's simply a replacement and not a modification.

My guess is that most insurers would take that view, if they even bothered to check. At worst, the ombudsman would likely overrule them if they didn't.

If insurance companies want to nit pick with any meaningful purpose then they''d be better off directing their attention towards things like cheap tyres and brake components.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Bluemarlin said:

cheap tyres

That is my biggest bug bear - they look at stickers and painted brake callipers, yet people happily drive on outright dangerous chinesium tyres that are self-certified and unlikely to meet any standards. But the only thing they care is that tyre has to be 1.6mm+

1 hour ago, Localhero said:

Unless you have agreed value insurance you will never get back what you think your car is worth and that does not mean just telling the insurers that you think its worth £10k they may even iinclude  that figure on your policy, but you will only get  book price regardless of whatever valuation you put on your car

Depends on insurance, but when you declare mods they ask you how much they are worth, so it kind of implies they will cover them. That said - you correct, unless you have agreed final value, you will never know what they will pay you, but mods and option when declared would make settlement figure higher. For example when my IS250 was written off, initially assessor put it at something like £1860 (because they literally could not tell the difference between IS220d and IS250). Then I said "look at the prices of SE-L automatic, with sunroof, ML and sat-nav, there is not a single car below £5000" and they raised the value to something like £3920. If I had declared set of wheels for the £1000 (that is how much F-Sport wheels costs), then I am sure I could have argued even higher price, perhaps not £1000 higher, but still higher than market average. However, I thought that simply ticking the box that car have mods would have made my insurance double and in long term was cheaper not to declare those wheels... and besides in case car was written of, I would simply take the wheels off.

[Localhero]

On 11/17/2023 at 5:28 PM, Linas.P said:

That is my biggest bug bear - they look at stickers and painted brake callipers, yet people happily drive on outright dangerous chinesium tyres that are self-certified and unlikely to meet any standards. But the only thing they care is that tyre has to be 1.6mm+

Depends on insurance, but when you declare mods they ask you how much they are worth, so it kind of implies they will cover them. That said - you correct, unless you have agreed final value, you will never know what they will pay you, but mods and option when declared would make settlement figure higher. For example when my IS250 was written off, initially assessor put it at something like £1860 (because they literally could not tell the difference between IS220d and IS250). Then I said "look at the prices of SE-L automatic, with sunroof, ML and sat-nav, there is not a single car below £5000" and they raised the value to something like £3920. If I had declared set of wheels for the £1000 (that is how much F-Sport wheels costs), then I am sure I could have argued even higher price, perhaps not £1000 higher, but still higher than market average. However, I thought that simply ticking the box that car have mods would have made my insurance double and in long term was cheaper not to declare those wheels... and besides in case car was written of, I would simply take the wheels off.

I agree with a lot of the posts above, but seriously  do you think that these assessors who probably visit 20 garages a day, have either the time, the inclination,or indeed permission to start stripping down your engine, to see if you have fitted Ngk sparkplugs, and having done so,would they put everything back together again?? Ithink not🤔 Stew

[Malc1]

Is there always the opportunity to have one’s own independent assessor to review all the issues too ?

Malc