Getting the highest valuation possible from ICBC
 

So let's share some tips and tricks on swaying ICBC to increase the value of your car after it's totalled.

There's been multiple threads on here that advises, after ICBC tells you the initial value, you can send in your ads for a reassessment.

After the reassessment and you're still not happy? Now what??
1) Arbitration and split the cost with ICBC (Cost is ~$1000)
2) private valuation and resubmit to ICBC for assess another time(Cost is ~$500)


Share with us your suggestions and success stories on getting an even higher value either through arbitration, private valuation or any another way that I haven't thought of!

Your best bet when dealing with ICBC is to hire a lawyer. I can truthfully say that I havent heard many stories of people coming out on top of ICBC without proper representation. ICBC will pretty much treat you like a nobody and lead you on a wild goose chase until they realize your serious and a lawyer gets involved.

I have never had a car written off so I cant speak specifically to that but generally speaking its always better to have proper legal advice, especially when dealing with something as important as your vehicle.

It's not an injury claim. It's about getting a few more bucks for his car (RSX?). The extra bucks would be negated if you have to pay a lawyer to help you push up the value.

ouch my first RS fails haha...

I was thinking more along the lines of getting a 1 hour legal consultation and speaking to a lawyer to get some proper legal advice. If ICBC is lowballing you $1000+ dollars, then $100 or $200 to speak to a lawyer and get some solid advice to help you get a better value might be worth it...

Do your research, in 2007 when I got hit, ICBC used a catalogue of ads from Craigslist and Auto Trader for your make and model of car in similar condition and come to a valuation.......... so you should do the same, print off ads and rationale for why your car is worth (X) amount and decide what you think is fair for it... see what they come in with and if it doesn't satisfy you start arguing.

I found in my situation they were pretty nice to me but I know that's not always the case. I also made it known to them that it wasn't my only car and I was in no hurry to settle I think with a lot of people they can be like "Well you gotta get some wheels back on the road right?" and take that approach...

ICBC relies on a third party company that does North American market research about comparable vehicles. I think the company is Audatex.

When my car was badly damaged it was actually right on the line for a write-off. I was hoping this would be the case, since I had a limited depreciation policy. ICBC (Audatex) actually screwed up the valuation by mistakenly adding options and comparing incorrect versions of my car. They offered me way, way, way too high, which as against my interest at the time. I asked them for their supporting documentation and they sent me a copy of the Audatex results. This is when I found the errors and had things adjusted (although still with a great deal of difficulty).

I don't think ICBC is particularly trying to screw people on vehicle valuation. I think they blindly rely on their third party solution and are far too busy to care about mistakes one way or the other.

I wanted to keep the details of my specific case out of this, so that this thread can be used by everyone, but nope it's not an RSX. something much harder to find; STi (If anyone one here comes across ads i can use with a value close to 20g, please pm them to me). And thank you for pointing out why a lawyer isn't the way to go here. I knew that, but just didn't wanna say it.

I think you missed the part where this thread is about after you've done your research and you still don't like the value ICBC has given. And ICBC has explained to me that even if someone accepts the value and cashes the cheque, that person can still go to arbitration within 2 years of the claim.

Also, when you said "decide what you think is fair for it", do you tell ICBC this value? because it is my understanding it's not a negotiation, instead, it's strictly what can be proven through documents.

great info on the Audatex! But i'm confused, the valuation was too high, so you did the honourable thing and reviewed their documents so that the valuation got lowered? ie they were going to give you too much money, so you told them to give you less?

My dad somehow managed to get $2800 for his POS 93 Camry with close to 300k that was pissing oil left right center. Initial offer was $2500, but he wanted $3000 and showed them a bunch of CL ads. Being the only owner helps I guess. Apart from the leaks, everything else was good.

On the other hand, I made the mistake of signing my mint SR20 S13 with a ton of brand new quality parts over to ICBC before we even negotiated the price. Their initial offer was something ridiculous like $2800, which was including their reimbursement of my $2500 wheels that I had a receipt for which were stolen. Showed them a bunch of CL ads of aesthetically displeasing cars with similar, cheaper mods that were all in the $7-8000 range. Their final offer was $4700 IIRC. I was lucky to even get that considering I had mistakenly signed my life away.

i came here looking for advice and to sum that advice up was to deny their offers, and thats the advice i passed on to my friend.

he did exactly that and walked away from his 1500$ civic with over 3000$ in his pocket..

mind you hes also a bit of a talker and upsold his vehicle stating it would be near impossible to replace his vehicle in its condition for their initial offer

good luck sir! i on the other hand have never had luck with ICBC

When the Jeep was totalled, i made the mistake of signing the salvage write off form before negotiating, i still got fair market value for it though. All i'm saying is there are good and bad sides to every company, ICBC included. Good luck OP!

never sign that ICBC salvage until you're happy with the price, until then the car sits and wastes their time, like they do with yours

So deny offer, but then what? Just sit and wait for them to call you again? How long was the whole process of initial offer to cashing the cheque?



Thank you all for your contribution so far.
Posted via RS Mobile

Dont sign shit.

My lawyer had to argue with them for months before they let me take my rims back + a better offer.

Ended up getting twice the original offer + wheels, but still got WAY less for the car in the end. Lawyer fees started racking up.

If you can, deal with them yourself, and make them wait. They'll keep telling you that you won't get a better offer, but you will. Don't waste your time by giving them some sob story. They're a business. Give them numbers, and you'll be happier, and possibly richer.

ICBC offered me 3500 for my stolen bike, cause they underestimated the mileage and condition. Learned my lesson that it is your job to tell them the correct information. Ending up they paid me 5800 which is 600 lowered from my original purchase price.

so 3 people have said to play the waiting game....what do you do in the meantime?
try to get your plates back so you can transfer the insurance to new car? If you transfer plates, do you still need to put storage insurance on the totaled car?
just buy new plates?

i dont have an answer for your insurance question, but the car has been written off so i dont think it needs insurance, being as its an icbc lot all their staff are on an insurance program that covers them in any cars they drive on their lot or off the lot while they are on the clock..

as goes for the waiting game, my friend waited a week, like posted above they just wanna lowball you, hope you sign shit and have you on their way. you denying their offer kinda jams things up and their time is valuable and they wont wanna spend too much of it wasted on a car sitting in their lot..

so hope for the best, expect the worst as it is ICBC. some people get lucky.. which means some people get bent over!

what he meant was that his repairs were approaching the threshold for a total loss assuming the correct market value. however, since Audatex had come back with a higher valuation, his vehicle was below the threshold and ICBC would have repaired it.

and it's not just ICBC which blindly relies on Audatex's valuation.. all private insurers in Alberta do so as well. No one is ever happy with the valuation unless they had paid substantially less than market value for their vehicle.

When i had to deal with ICBC they offered me 19,900 to start i said it was to low because the exterior was mint they came back at 21,900. I had purchased the car 2 years earlier for 21,500 so i was happy.

Not ICBC but a good example nonetheless:

Insurance | My Audi S4
Posted via RS Mobile

my dad's Legacy Wagon was hard to find on CL. I found a few random ones that either had a few less options, or had really high km. They were all around the 6-8k range - but they offered my dad 11k, which I guess is pretty reasonable...

As long as it's in the claim centre. If they tow it back to the yard you'll be paying the daily storage fee while you negotiate.

Do you know the fee? And does it say this somewhere on their website?
Posted via RS Mobile

Edit: I did some digging and found this. It's kinda hard to find info on their site
http://www.icbc.com/claims/how_claim
go to Vandalism tab, click on #3 Get an estimate of the damage
and it says "If your vehicle is not repairable and must be written off, you will receive a total loss settlement. You will need to sign a salvage release and we will send your vehicle to our Salvage Department for disposal."

so according to this, their protocol is to not tow to the salvage yard until the owner signed a salvage release, so what happens with the fee you're referring to if ICBC jumps the gun and tows the vehicle to the salvage yard before a salvage release is signed?


I think it would really add some substance to the info in here if people sourced the information ie, stating it's personal experience, it's a friend who experienced, if it's just hearsay, or if you can link to icbc's site.

Usually the process is as follows:

If the car is severely damaged, it goes to the Centralized Estimating Facility where an estimator calculates the repairs required and they determine whether or not the car is worth fixing.
If the estimator thinks the car is a write off, they will call you to collect some more tails about the car if they need, things like KM's, maintenance info, options, etc. They send off the info to the third party company, who then plugs all the info into their system and compares your car to others on the market and they come up with a fair market value of your car.

If the car isn't badly damaged, they will send it to a shop of your choice. Make sure you pick a reputable shop who will be able to spot all the potential damages and estimate them right away. That way, if the total cost of the repairs comes close to the Market Value of the vehicle, ICBC will write it off. If the shop misses some damages, and ICBC decides that the car is worth repairing, you may end up with a car that should have been written off but instead you are stuck with a car that wasn't repaired property and has a huge dec on it.

I've had mixed results in my previous experiences with ICBC, I've ended up being better off having the car written off than what I could have gotten for it if I was to sell it myself. Another time, I lost quite a bit of money when my car got totaled a week after I had a $2,500 timing belt job done. ICBC called the job "regular maintenance" and told me I was out of luck getting that $2,500 reimbursed. I also had aftermarket wheels on the car and two of them were damaged, and ICBC told me that my OEM wheels were worth more than the aftermarket wheels, so they weren't paying me for the damage to the aftermarket wheels. Luckly the OEM wheels were in good shape and had good tires on them so I was able to sell them on craigslist for a decent amount...

one minor thing to add to this:

following the accident, the car is taken to the tow company's yard. if your preferred body shop is ICBC accredited, when you call ICBC to report the claim, you can ask them to tow the car directly to your shop and bypass the central estimating facility completely.

that way, the first person who looks at the car and estimates if the car is worth fixing is your body shop guy, not the ICBC estimator. if you have a good body shop guy, this can often be favorable to you.

Is there a way to access Audatex and see what your car is valued at? When I insured my car I asked the lady at the place if she could tell me, she was only able to tell me what they consider the market value to be when purchasing (not sure if that's the same?) and the number was bullshit, not to mention they didn't actually have my cars trim level listed.

And how do you guys deal with modified cars? Will ICBC add value for mods or no? What's the beat way to prove the real value of the car to them?