Originally Posted by
Natban
I went through something similar last fall. Here's how it went, hope it applies or helps you.
I was able to deal with my insurance adjuster who originally valued my car somewhere around $3K (CAD) by way of a 3rd party appraisal report. Report is supposed to be based on similar cars in the local market. I requested to see the 3rd party report. I could then see that they used different 3-series as comparables. Mine was an '03 330i5, comparables in the report were, 320's 325's and 330ciA. For each comparable vehicle the report shows asking $$, km's, adjusted selling price reduction of +/- 10% and maybe a few other things. With that info I was able to deconstruct their valuation process. Then I could see that the insurance company was valuing things like "3-series" and "2003" more than "30", "i" and 5spd. So after that I just had to be polite with my adjuster and let them know that my cars comparables were things like LCI (03-05), sedan with a 5 speed transmission. Once that was understood we could then select proper, fair comparable cars in our local market.
In the end the insurance company needed at least 3 comparable vehicles. Luckily , that's all that were for sale in regards to sedan LCI 30 5spd. And ZHP or not, that combo has a much higher asking price, my payout doubled, and rightfully so.
The only danger I can see when talking to your insurance company about the value of your car is that you set the parameters in such a way that make your car too rare and you are unable to find 3 different comparables in your local car market.
On a side note, I also started my journey by talking with a friend of a friend who deals with representing (not a lawyer) people against the insurance company and help them get things like compensation for the de-valueation of a rebuilt title or claims on titles etc. He was the one who told me about the Mitchel Report (3rd party appraisal). But when dealing with cars of such a relatively small value he wasn't able to offer more help.