Written Off

That is so unfortunate Tony, I feel your pain. Good luck with your negotiating with the insurance company. Hopefully you will be able to get a better deal than their first offer.

I’m not sure if Sorrymate compensation solicitors will be able to help. Might be worth giving them a call. Their web site is www.sorrymate.com

Good luck.

 

You have to prove the value of your Thruxton immediately prior to the accident. The Third Party insurers should compensate you for this value. The best way to prove the pre accident value is to go back to Jack Lilley and ask them to provide you with a valuation, IN WRITING, on their headed paper. They should give as much detail as possible as to how they arrive at this valuation.
Forward a copy of this to the insurers and ask them to reconsider their offer.
You will probably not recover the cost of the service, the aim of the value is for you to be able to go and purchase an identical machine. Purchasing this from a dealer would almost certainly mean that the bike had been serviced prior to sale so, in effect, you are back in the same position as you were immediately prior to the accident.

For a dispute of this type forget the Ombudsman, he is their to deal with complaints against your own insurers, in a case of this type your remedy is through the civil courts.

The other way to approach the whole sorry saga is to contact your insurers and make a claim on your policy, assuming that you disclosed the extras and paint job on the bike they will deal with you less your policy excess and then seek to recover the cost from the van's insurers, leaving you to just pursue a claim for your excess and any other uninsured losses. If you did not disclose the extras fitted to the bike you could have a problem with your insurers over the value of the bike at the time of the loss.
Whichever way you go you will still have to disclose this accident at any renewal of any vehicle insurance for the next few years, failure to disclose could result in any future claim being repudiated.

Best of luck with your negotiations, I feel for you all this grief over an incident over which you had no control at all. At least you were uninjured and, personal though it is, a Truxton can always be replaced, you can't!

 

Maybe your back is acting up a bit since the collision? Or you're having nightmares about the accident?
More than 1 way to skin a cat.

 

I'm so sorry to read about what the accident, @TonyG, and what you are dealing with related to insurance compensation. As @Wessa said, "I feel your pain". We all love our bikes and especially so when we've put so much into them. I hope that you are able to get everything resolved to your satisfaction--and sooner (much) rather than later. I'm really glad that you weren't badly hurt and the injuries were primarily to your Thruxton.

 

I had a similar issue although with my S2000 Westfield kit car.

I rejected the insurance offer and supplied various photographs and paperwork to support the car's true worth.

After 2 weeks or so they agreed to pay what i was asking for.

The car was impounded but i asked if i could recover "personal" items.

They helpfully allowed me to take a few added extras from the car.....

Just dont accept the first offer.

 

Why not try White Dalton who write in Ride magazine?

 

I was in a similar situation in Nov '22 when my SS got written off and ended up with a similar result. I refused the insurer's first offer, then got a call from an assessor/loss adjuster, whatever you want to call him who turned out to be a decent chap who listened to reason and open to a haggle. The upshot was a got a much better, very fair offer AND I got to remove and keep the extras I'd added that were still serviceable.
If the bike is in storage after being assessed the insurers will want to avoid the claim dragging on and escalating storage costs.

 

If there was ever a case to demonstrate that you must insist your bike is recovered to a dealer rather than the insurers "preferred option" like 4th dimension then this is it. The other is that unlike cars any work carried out by non franchised repairers then invalidates your warranty as the EU law that allows this for cars doesn't apply to bikes (or vans)

 

That's why I had my SS delivered back to me by the dealer after the assessment. Until you have accepted the payout figure the bike still belongs to you and having control of it's whereabouts is a good bargaining tool. When I had been paid out, the salvage Co. 4th Dimension came and collected it.

 

Spent two hours taking the extras off my Bonnie recently in similar circumstances. It was a right pain.

 

EU law? How so? UK left the EU years ago. Have we not yet taken back control?

 

I saw a thread on here recently beefing about insurance increases.....

 

We did, but adopted the existing EU laws until such time that they were superceeded by a new UK one. In this v
case unless I'm mistaken the old EU law still applies.

 

They also guest on 44Teeth YouTube channel from time to time. I have used them in the past. They managed to get a 90mph in a 60 downgraded to an SP30.

 

As I understand it the injured party should be able to enjoy the same circumstances that existed before the incident happened.

If your machine has a sentimental value to you and you would ideally wish to retain ownership and continue to ride it despite the assessors opinion that it’s a write off you ought to be able to negotiate a cash settlement in lieu of repair.

Ten years or so ago I had a spill after coming across a sunken drainage grating close to home. No more than 10 mph but the Duke ended up with a goodly amount of road rash on the fairing and the offside indicator, twist grip and front brake lever also suffered. Because the front brake lever clamped my fingers to the bar it dragged me with it. Breaking collar bone, shoulder blade and a couple of ribs. My machine also has a custom registration which I would loose if it were written off.

All due to my inattentiveness. The bike was around ten years old but was a 30th wedding anniversary pressy from SWMBO so despite the assessor advising that he regarded it as a write off he agreed to a cash settlement in lieu of repair. Being reasonably handy with the spanners the only thing I couldn’t tackle was the bodywork. End result, all sorted with enough spare crinkle to buy myself a compressor.

The reason they use the term “cash settlement in lieu of repair” absolves them of any liability if a subsequent event occurs that can be found to be caused by your poor or inappropriate repair.

 

As @Baza said buying back the remains is always an option but be careful and ensure you know, as far as possible, what you are letting yourself in for.

I bought my mates 675r after he was chasing me on my 765rs. He came off it on a lefthander, which he is particularly strong on.
Amongst the obvious was also a bent front wheel spindle , no problem but..... what else?
Unfortunately, and totally unforeseeable, the forks were ever so slightly bent sideways.

New legs and spindle sorted it but added significantly to the rebuild cost.