Betterment - ?

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vickster

Squire
@Crankarm Presumably the claims handler is a Slater & Gordon paralegal? Whether that's a good or bad thing...?
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
spen666 is correct about the bike value - you'd have to go into negotiations with the third party insurer. In my case the bike is a piddling amount compared to the damage to me.
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
Have you still got the bike. If so salvage what you can and tell em you'd like a 631 replacement frame and any bits required to bring it back to what you had. Most insurers don't want this hassle as all they want to do is send you summat in a box that they don't pay 'full retail price' for.
 

bpsmith

Veteran
I had a good chat with the engineer putting the report together for my bike claim, which is progressing with Leigh Day via British Cycling. LD appointed the engineer on my behalf.

The engineer was genuinely interested in cycling and heard me out about my bike being my pride and joy, was immaculate prior to the incident and the undamaged areas of the bike showed this to be true. It didn’t harm that the bike was spotless either. He took honest photos showing the damage and also a pile of other photos, at my request, which showed just how clean and immaculate it was for a 2 year old bike. He sent me a copy of the completed report and it really was a glowing record of the bike itself.

With respect to putting together a price for replacement, it was tricky as I had bought a standard Bianchi that you cannot buy the frameset on its own, then upgraded loads of bits over the 2 years. He used RRP for the bike, then added on all the upgrades at RRP, before removing the cost of the bits I removed at RRP. Then removed 10% per year for depreciation. It didn’t harm that I had listed al the parts for him and shown him them when doing the photos. He appreciated me emailing him the spreadsheet as it saved loads of time.

Not settled the claim yet, but I genuinely do believe that we have this bit sewn up, with an honest and fair description and basis for the claim, plus the depreciation removed covers any argument there. Time will tell whether it has any effect but I have every confidence in what was created. :smile:

Just wish the insurer themselves would sort themselves out now...
 
OP
OP
simongt

simongt

Guru
Location
Norwich
Thanks for the valued advices and informations folks. I'm currently composing an e-mail back to the assessors arguing that 'betterment' implies that I want something better than I had. Not so: I simply want a bike of similar quality / spec to my beloved Bravado, which the Jamis Aurora comes the closest. The original drive train was a Shimano Deore XT.
When Evan's submitted the crash assessment, which I'm forwarding of course, they recommended the Genesis Equilibrium Disc 20 2018 @ £1,999 as a modern equivalent. Now, that is a much bigger difference in price than the possible £250 that I'm asking the assessors to allow on the Jamis - !
 
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