Advice needed - Insurance / Write Off

[Heston Service]

Last week I had the pleasure of a bit of a spin down the road on my back. "Sorry mate, didn't see you" (he really said it) and my GS wrapped round the central reservation of the A1.

Good news is that we were both insured (a rarity these days) and he admitted responsibility to the police.

On Friday I received a copy of the first repair estimate. It's for £4500 and that is just for external repairs to 'anything scratched'; the bike is stuck in gear so there will be more coming to sort the engine out (it came down pretty hard on the right hand cylinder head so who knows what is in there). Good job the insurance will pay.

So a bill of at least 5 grand and the bike is probably only worth 6 and a half or so (02 adv with 12000 miles). The dealer reckons that it's very unlikely that it will be written off - "BMW rarely write anything off".

I'm a bit worried about this as I'll presumably have to mention the crash repair when I sell the bike.

So: is there anything I can do to 'encourage' a write off? Is there any stigma attatched to a crash repaired bike when I come to sell?

Also, I still need a copy of the accessories price list to prove the cost of my system cases if anyone has one???

Thanks in advance, Rob

 

[(RIP) Sugar Ray]

I'm not sure about BMs, but many insurers work on the principle of not repairing new-ish bikes when the damage is over 60% of the value - the reason being they can sell a crashed bike for quite a tidy sum, due to the price of spares i.e. they can recover the other 40% by selling the bike on to a dismantler.

Regards,

Charles

 

[Iain Hogg]

It's the insurance company, not BMW, who decide if it's a write off.

BMW only assist that decision with thier exhorbitant labour rates and spare parts prices !

Make sure that estimates for repair are from a BM dealer and you should be well on the way to a write off from what you describe

Also, hold out for a decent payout, I got £5000 earlier this year for a T reg 1100 with 45k miles on the clock.

Iain
(now riding a W reg 1150 )

 

[retroman]

Heston,

Glad to hear that you are ok.
I crashed a 6 month old GS with 6k on. The repairs totalled £4.5k and I was told that if it was any more the bike would have been written off by BMW insurance.
The bike was returned to me as good as new, so don't worry about resale. But I imagine yours will be a W/O.
ATB
Dave

 

[Paul Young]

I had an R80GS written off some years ago. I got paid out £2800 but was aloowed to keep the salvage & they knocked £175 off the payout to cover it. It was only a Cat D write off so I was able to rebuild it around a brand new frame, imported for me by M'works. A few s/h parts & a total of £1900 was spent rebuilding it, including labour from a local dealer (my wrist was broken in the accident so I couldn't do it myself.... otherwise it would have been cheaper still). I then ran the bike for another 50k miles & sold it for £1500. I ended up looking on that bike as a freebie as it had paid for itself, in several ways, many times over.

If it is written off, try & buy back the salvage as spares. If it is just a Cat D, I would seriously consider trying to rebuild it & get a (nearly) free bike

 

[Steptoe]

If its as you describe it will be written off, make them an offer or ask how much they want for the salvage and i'll buy it off you, with your profit on top naturally. PM me if your interested, i'm trying to get a GS loan bike for all the GSers having their bikes serviced .

 

[Strand-wolf]

BMW's insurer wanted to write mine off for a lot less than 60% value, they valued mine at £5085.
Cooper- Reading gave a silly quote of over three grand and buggered the claim, I refused and got a lower quote for 1800 privately. After persuasion they agreed not to write it off if it didn't exceed two grand.
Premier Bikes at Didcot did the work for about the same 1800 price but some of the repair work was a bit ropey.

Buying the write-off back was an option but they (BMW Insurance via Devitts) indicated that they wouldn't want to re-insure the bike afterwards.

Anybody had experience of insuring a repaired write-off without them loading the premium?

 

[Paul Young]

My insurers were reluctant to cover the bike afterwards, unless I provided them with MOT & new details from the DVLA to show it wasn't on a "Q" plate. I got all the parts supplied by the same company & they invoiced me separately for the frame & the rest of the parts (at my request). I supplied the new frame invoice to DVLA & they issued a new frame number, which my local police station stamped into the frame & verified/witnessed. I got a new V5 confirming all the new details & still showing the original reg number.

The bike was rebuilt by my local dealer/MOT tester so a pass cert was straightforward. Once I demonstrated all the paperwork to the insurers, they were perfectly happy to take money off me.

 

[jimbo]

Just an Idea

If the other party has clearly agreed liability, you could claim off his insurance direct, rather than your own.
I have done this in the past a couple of times and whilst no lawyer I think it has the following advantage:
- if they right the bike off it remains your property - they have no right to your property just because their client crashed into it.
- you are not bound by any small print that may be in your policy. Make sure you claim for everything - it needs to be reasonable and justifyable, but they are liable for all dammages and/or inconvenience - clothing, repalcement bike hire expenses for recovery etc etc.
- it your bike, so you can select where you want it repaired (within reason). All the 3 quotes stuf has no force of law behind it.
- it keeps the books cleaner - you shouldn't affect any no-claims on your policy.

When you sell the bike you have to be honest, so if the buyer asks the question, you can't lie, although I think you can refuse to answer. Bit of a give-away though...
J