What’s the market value of my written off car?

I had a car accident and will be getting an insurance payout for my wrecked car - total write off.

Holden Astra wagon, 2007, 84,000 km. Proposed payout of $5,700.

The insurance assessor talked me through the assessment: Glass’s Guide gives a value of $4,400 based on the low km.

Because of the low km and because I found an example for sale (but with much higher Kms) this has been increased to a proposed payout of $5,700.

The assessor said he discards examples that are too high or too low in cost. Also they take cars with milage within 50,000 km of my car as comparable examples.

My query is: how likely is it that I will be able to purchase a 2007 Astra wagon with around 80,000 km on the clock for $5,700?

 

Extremely unlikely... because yours is/was probably the only one in existence with that spec

 

Perhaps:

https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/de...iversary-ah-auto-my08-5/OAG-AD-18986626/?Cr=2

 

It is a bit low but these are perils of market value when you have an edge case (low km). But you have saved on your premiums.

Were you not at fault and did the other party have insurance? It would be unfortunate if your own insurance company was negotiating you down...

Probably worth more work to negotiate.

 

I wasn’t at fault. The assessor is from my insurance company. The other party is insured.

I was originally offered less. But luckily I had a screenshot of a same year car (but manual with 147,000 km) advertised for sale a few days ago. Being advertised for $5,999 by a dealer.

However, the assessor said that they don’t take an advertised price at face value - but discount it based on an assumption that a buyer would negotiate the price down.

 

I didn’t mean literally - but more to check if it is likely to be the case that I could pick up a 2007 or similar year car with around 80,000km for that price if one did exist?

 

I think this was probably one of the outliers when we looked at the market this afternoon.
30,000 more km than my car - but still costs $2,000 more than my payout.

Perhaps I could make an offer equal to my payout?

The other thing I didn’t realise is that my rego refund of $400 is deducted from the payout.

 

You did well to negotiate up. Take the money and run.. it's a 13 year old run of the mill car from an extinct manufacturer that only has to provide parts because it is told to.

 

I faced this issue with my car being damaged in the big Canberra hail storm earlier this year. The car was 5 yo but low mileage and by the time I factored in the excess and increased future premiums I found that it made more sense to drive the hail damaged vehicle for another 5 to 10 years, which I had intended to do anyway (I tend to run cars into the ground), than seek an equivalent replacement. Luckily I had the option of just not reporting the damage rather than having it written off. I estimated the all up cost would have been around 4-6k to find an equivalent vehicle with similar low mileage.

When my daughter wrote off my almost new renault (single vehicle accident but no real fault of hers) I roughly estimated it cost me almost $10k all up.

 

Not sure if this site will help ,but it will give some idea on the value range ..imho..

https://www.redbook.com.au/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1v7u253x6wIVgg4rCh2m6waZEAAYASAAEgKMEfD_BwE

 

Thank you. Unfortunately the average km is listed as 195,00l to 325,000. So hard to tell what value effect the 80,000 of my car adds in the red book

The assessors use Glass’s Guide.

 

True. But it is a later model and a 60th anniversary model as well (might be worth something in the future to a Holden nut lol).

Thats what I'd be aiming for. But that car is in SA and I wouldn't buy it unseen and without a check up. Can you sneak across the border?

Those insurance companies don't miss anything. Rego forms part of the value of the car.

 

Interestingly when the assessor and l were going through the ‘market value’ chat (each looking up the market through cars advertised in cars.com, I was advised to narrow my search to NSW and Vic. SA wasn’t mentioned.

Either way, I can’t get over the border from metro Victoria!

 

Update: I have now been offered $8,000!

Worth noting - as the insurance company was adamant a couple of weeks ago that $5,700 was at the high end of its value.

Just shows what responding with some actual market research can do. And glad I didn’t follow the suggestion to just take the money and run!

 

was gunna say. Redbook for vals is what I have always used

 

Thank you. The industry uses Glass’s Guide. The problem was that there are very few cars with such low mileage as mine had - and mileage is one of the key things for value.

It also appears that the guides hadn’t kept up with the spike in value of used cars during COVID.

I was able to search intensively and show that the amount I was being offered would not and could not buy me an equivalent car!

Most importantly, I didn’t care how long the process took and I don’t need the money urgently. And I was pretty cheesed off at the first offer (where I was actually told the assessor was going out on a limb!)

I was actually looking forward to going to the financial ombudsman...

 

Ah thanks for that. I am quite out of date so that is helpful and educative news. Actually, I'm really impressed by your moxie. Great job! Really happy for you.

 

There may be another reason for a spike in used cars. Something I have never seen here in China now appearing. Second-hand cars dealerships. So.....others may know something about this as cars is not something i bother with any more

 

Thank you.

I am still pretty grumpy at them because if I had accepted the original $4,400, they would have been quite happy to pay me out at that!

So every time, since then, when they have said how much they are trying to help me I take it with a grain of salt!

 

The joys of the difference between market value and agreed value when you insure. You can pay through the nose for an agreed value policy if you believe that your car is worth more than the general market value.