HELP. My insurance company are thieves.

**kave** · 2nd March 2009, 12:25

Last wednesday a young girl swerved in front of my bike. There was a minor crash (plenty of damage to the vehicles but no injuries), she was charged with failure to give way and I was left with a stuffed bike.

Today I had a call from my insurance company saying that the bike was being written off and that its value was far less than I expected. My bike was insured for market value, and every similar bike on trademe is being sold for more than a third more money than they are offering me.

I told my insurance company (no names until the process is complete) that they are taking the piss, and they have suggested that I seek out valuations privately, and we will try to come to some arrangement. I have recent photos of the bike (less than four weeks old) showing it in excellent condition. I am able to take wednesday off work to get valuations (and to go into the insurance company to sort things out face-to-face), but I am unsure as to the best places to go.

Is there anyone on Kiwibiker that is capable of doing valuations, preferably near to Auckland?

Thanking you all in advance.

**Cajun** · 2nd March 2009, 12:32

best bet, go to a couple of dealers, suzuki ones might be best bet, and ask them what your bike with milage and mods would be worth.

Do a serach on bikepoint.co.nz and trademe for same model of your bike, and print these off to dhow insurance company to go with quotes from a couple of bike dealers.

**JMemonic** · 2nd March 2009, 12:54

I have had a similar issue with an insurance company who did not actually understand bikes but did them as a car, then when the time for repair came they sent around an assessor who determined the bike was a write off and got valuations on the bike, sight unseen by 2 shops locally, the cheapest of these valuations was taken to be the value of the bike.

I found out who one of the valuations came from and went and asked them for the cheap bikes explained the situation and they advised me the insurance company wanted the wholesale value or possible trade value of x bike of x year and in less than average condition, apparently their version of less than average meant it was off the road unregistered etc and only had scrap metal values.

Get independent assessment if you can, print of as many trademe and bikepoint ads you can proving that there is no way that wholesale value equates to real world values and ask about the insurance companies complaints process, keep trying people there going up the food chain as is necessary, you might be surprised what you can achieve.

**Max Preload** · 2nd March 2009, 13:49

Name and shame.

**kave** · 2nd March 2009, 13:57

Originally Posted by Max Preload

Name and shame.

Only if I don't get a satisfactory outcome.

**Max Preload** · 2nd March 2009, 14:01

Originally Posted by kave

Only if I don't get a satisfactory outcome.

Why not now? The fact they're even trying this shit on should be made public.

Oh well, doesn't affect me. I have nothing to do with the crooks.

**Daffyd** · 2nd March 2009, 14:02

And don't forget to hit them up for the lost income while obtaining said valuations.

**MSTRS:Me** · 2nd March 2009, 14:55

Was the girl with the same company? It seems to me that since it wasn't your fault, then it's not your policy paying for your bike, written off or otherwise.
Was the girl uninsured? In which case, your policy covers upfront, but ins co goes her for whatever it cost them.

**kave** · 2nd March 2009, 15:03

The girl was with the same insurance company as mine, and was fully insured.

**Oscar** · 2nd March 2009, 15:17

Originally Posted by kave

Last wednesday a young girl swerved in front of my bike. There was a minor crash (plenty of damage to the vehicles but no injuries), she was charged with failure to give way and I was left with a stuffed bike.

Today I had a call from my insurance company saying that the bike was being written off and that its value was far less than I expected. My bike was insured for market value, and every similar bike on trademe is being sold for more than a third more money than they are offering me.

I told my insurance company (no names until the process is complete) that they are taking the piss, and they have suggested that I seek out valuations privately, and we will try to come to some arrangement. I have recent photos of the bike (less than four weeks old) showing it in excellent condition. I am able to take wednesday off work to get valuations (and to go into the insurance company to sort things out face-to-face), but I am unsure as to the best places to go.

Is there anyone on Kiwibiker that is capable of doing valuations, preferably near to Auckland?

Thanking you all in advance.

I had one of these when I was a broker.
I got the insurer to agree that they had to "repair or reinstate", let them fester for a while and asked them to to produce the vehicle (in this case a car) that their assessor had said "...there were heaps of at that price."

They couldn't, and paid more.

**MSTRS:Me** · 2nd March 2009, 15:26

Originally Posted by kave

The girl was with the same insurance company as mine, and was fully insured.

That can complicate things. Be glad that (dual?) Full-cover applies, not 3rd Party...

That business about 'wholesale bikeshop purchase' is an absolute crock. Market value is not the lowest figure, anyway...we'd all be fucked if MrSmith sold his FLDGSXCBR1WRX for $1.00. You just need to find 3 recent sales of your model, and (assuming condition is similar) use the average price of those 3 to determine a market value.

**tigertim20** · 2nd March 2009, 15:36

Hey buddy, that sucks about your bike! here what I did last year in almost EXACTLY the same situation.
Insurance company said its worth this much (about half what I thought) So I went to the bike shop in Dunedin (Honda Otago) and the guy there was happy to go and do a valuation and put it in writing, which I took back to the insurance company, and things went very quickly from there, I was given a cheque within an hour and walked away happy.

How it works is that POST accident, you have to have some-one go and do an official valuation of what they think the bike WOULD have been worth before the accident. I would suggest, if possible, that you go to whoever did the maintenance etc on your bike (someone who KNOWS your bike), and ask them to go do an official valuation for you, and explain your predicament. Honda Otago went and did it for me for free, (bloody good of them!)

Unfortunately taking in Copies of Trade Me auctions dont count for anything with them, I tried the same thing before resorting to going and getting other valuations.

Best of luck buddy!!!

**thehollowmen** · 2nd March 2009, 15:54

I'd go bike shopping around town, get some valuations on similar bikes and post them off. Insist on the support of a dealer, private sales are out of the question.

If they take no notice, at least you'll have fun test riding everything.

Be careful about asking them to produce a bike, they may produce a lemon and call it your replacement.

Wishing you luck
Colin

**discotex** · 3rd March 2009, 07:08

This is standard insurance industry practice. They bid low and hope the punter knows nothing about the value of their bike.

When my old ZXR250 was written off I was told it was valued at some stupid low number like $5k.

I laughed because I'd paid $6k 8 months before and it was mint. Given how rare they are I knew it had held it's value. So after some discussion they agreed to get more quotes. I suggested they ask Red Baron where it was purchased from and serviced only a month before the accident. They came back with a market value over $6k and someone else a bit under.

AMI averaged the quotes and paid me out just under $6k which I was happy with. But then in the end the other guy's insurance company paid out the highest quote which AMI promptly passed on to me.

In the end I made a profit on the bike

So just stick to your guns. They'll probably roll over once you appear to know what you're talking about.

**Grahameeboy** · 3rd March 2009, 07:15

Originally Posted by discotex

This is standard insurance industry practice. They bid low and hope the punter knows nothing about the value of their bike.

When my old ZXR250 was written off I was told it was valued at some stupid low number like $5k.

I laughed because I'd paid $6k 8 months before and it was mint. Given how rare they are I knew it had held it's value. So after some discussion they agreed to get more quotes. I suggested they ask Red Baron where it was purchased from and serviced only a month before the accident. They came back with a market value over $6k and someone else a bit under.

AMI averaged the quotes and paid me out just under $6k which I was happy with. But then in the end the other guy's insurance company paid out the highest quote which AMI promptly passed on to me.

In the end I made a profit on the bike

So just stick to your guns. They'll probably roll over once you appear to know what you're talking about.

It is not often the Insurer's fault as they rely on assessor's who are not always right when it comes to bikes.