Posted by Remy Davison on January 04, 2009 at 04:33:47 from from 203.10.110.131
Or, how to win against an insurance company if you have an Old Skool car and some moron playing with his GPS in a Z4 hits you.
Answer: sue them. Or take them to court, anyway. For the background to this year-long saga, check out this earlier message:
http://www.firstfives.org/wb/msgs/25652.html
In brief, the E12's repairs cost $AUD7,400 (at the time, $US7,000). The insurer originally accepted the *independent* assessor's valuation of repairs - he said it was an original car in exceptional condition.
6 months later (June 08), the insurance firm has changed their tune, refusing to pay the bill and calling in their *own* (not independent) assessor. He takes one looks, says, "It's worth 1200 bucks (like hell - the window tinting is worth that). Why did you fix it?"
Long story short: off to court we go. In December, court awards all repair costs to me AND legal costs. And the insurer has to pay their own legal costs.
The legal argument was that the insurer had originally accepted the independent valuation (who said that he hadn't seen an E12 like that for a long time). And a reasonable car should be replaced by a similar, reasonable car. The judge agreed.
It's comprehensively insured under classic car insurance now.
As a side note, I did find a repairer who had been prepared to fix it for $3,500, although his job probably wouldn't have been quite as good as my guys.
Only 3 panels left to paint ;-)
Cheers,
RD
'81 528i E12 Polaris
'81 635CSi E24 Sapphire Blau
'83 528i E12/8 Rubinrot
'96 735iL E39 Sorrento Blau