There is nothing wrong with PCP in principle. What seems to have happened is that she overpaid for the vehicle, and whilst sometimes that can make sense, she then didn’t protect herself in the deal. That is not a problem with PCP itself.
You say she overpaid but from what we looked at on all the trading and car sales it was the going rate if not a little cheaper.
She even looked at new through Fiat and a car same model and spec was around £21,500.
Thanks
I always thought the idea of insurance was to put the claimant back in the same position as they were before the incident - less any excess.
the morally proper outcome here would be for the supplier to source an equivalent vehicle and continue with terms unchanged, and insurance to facilitate that.
It's complications like this makes me glad i've always 'owned' my cars outright.
If new it was 21,500 then this was no Abarth 595. Something I approached many a time on this thread, and to me that puts a very different slant on it.
Can you clarify what actual car this was? Sound like a Turismowith a few options, or Competizione...
That then also means that the insurance company has seriously undervalued it. Hence I asked previously whether they've got the right car on the insurance.
Most insurance policies do exactly that within the first 12 months of a car's life. There are it really gets way to variable to do that as a blanker, which means that the insurance cost would go up considerably to cover that in a blanket manner. I'd not be happy with that if I didn't require that.
I really don't see what the issue is with insuring it for the liability you have with it since that and combined with the comfort level of risk taking varies between people.
It is good to have choice I'd say.
However saying that; now we know that the list price for a new equivalent of this particular model was £21,500 I'm really surprised by the offer that was received. It doesn't seem to bear resemblance on market value at all. So a few possibility that jump into my mind; the insurance company has got this totally wrong and didn't look properly at what model was insured. The vehicle insured was provided as a less model in the range. The market value for the vehicle provide by the insured may have been stated less and as the insurance company quoted their premiums for that they bound their payout to that. And many other possibilities. But something doesn't seem right here.
Totally agree. This is from CarWow, I think the standard Abarth starts at £18,000 ish
https://www.avforums.com/attachments/capture-jpg.1156935/
List price £16,495, I've got brand new quotes around £14,500. I know as I was looking at buying one for my daughter and at the time I commented that it was only about 3 Bitcoin (less than 2 yesterday). Was considering whether to upgrade with leather or not. We had to stay at the entry level due to insurance costs that just disproportionally go up for the other models. Still absolutely brilliant fun little car in my opinion. But she settled on a 32 year old Golf GTI instead...
That would be an agreed value though? If the insured goes that low with an agreed value and the insurer accepts it, that is what is used for the premium so it is what it is.
It is a self stated value in the UK. There are no checks. So if you, for example, knowingly or accidentally understated the value of the vehicle that may result in lower premiums.
Naturally that is a highly simplified view as different insurance companies treat that differently. I've had it sometimes, especially with older cars, that a higher value is actually cheaper to insure than a low value 'old banger'. So it all depends.
Regardless of that, the point is that it does impact the premium you've paid. So stating one thing, and expecting another would require some justification I'd have thought.
Surely if the claimant would be expected to replace a 14-month old car with x miles on it, for the settlement excess, the supplier is in a better position to be able to do that, being 'in the trade' ?Who could then adjust the details on the contract. That's what I meant by equivalent vehicle, not replace it with a 0-mileage one.