- 1Read
- 2Ask
- 3Decide
- 4Ruling
Case 2 of 19 · Level 1
Car insurance · a write-off
The double deduction
The file · about 5 minutes
The complaint
The customer's car was written off, and they say the settlement is too low. They paid £6,500 for the car not long before, and they say the insurer took the same old damage off twice.
The firm's answer
The insurer says it took the average of three trade guides, then took off £291 for damage that was already on the car before the accident, half the cost of repairing it. It says the figure is fair.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The offer
Three trade guide figures, £4,880, £4,923 and £5,095, averaged to £4,966, less £291 for old damage to a bumper, a rear panel and two doors: an offer of £4,675.
Exhibit B · The customer's letter
They paid £6,500 for the car, they believe they are owed around £700 more, and they say the £291 was taken off twice.
A fourth trade guide
A fourth guide values the car at £5,268, above all three the insurer used. The usual approach is to pay the highest guide figure unless the insurer shows a good reason for a lower one.
The deduction working
The £291 is half the estimated cost of repairing the old damage, and it came off once, from the averaged figure.
The insurer's adverts
The insurer sent three adverts for similar cars. Sixteen similar cars were for sale online at the time, so three adverts are not enough to show the highest guide figure is too high.
Uphold the complaint, or side with the firm?
The ruling
Given by the ombudsman
Upheld
Why
The ombudsman found the £291 came off once, not twice, and that half the repair cost of old damage was a fair deduction. Averaging the guides was not fair: the value was the highest guide figure, £5,268, less the £291, so £4,977. The customer was owed £302 more, with interest.
What the firm had to do
Pay the difference between £4,675 and £4,977, with simple interest at 8 percent a year from the day the first payment was made.
What an adjudicator takes from this. Check the method, not only the figure. The customer had the right instinct about the offer and the wrong reason: the deduction was fair, the averaging was not.
Rewritten in our own words from a case the ombudsman published.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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