Fair play to Windsor. But it does show up the problems with supposedly fully comp. insurance.
I was renewing just the other day, and had a good old argument about the non-availablity of book values at quote stage. The woman pointed out that she doesn't have the book values, but it's clear that this is a concious choice by all insurance companies, .. they could easily have the book values if they so choose.
Corcoran1 seems to suggest above that 'most cars are not making book value'.. so I wonder if it's true that companies will never pay out above the book value, but will pay out less if they think they can....
The book value is a private value, made up and maintained by the insurance companies.. so they should be able to keep it up to date. Is there a single book for everyone?, or does each insurance company maintain it's own?
On the issue of book values at renewal... there is a small problem, easily solved.. and that's the small chance that a car might increase in value over time.. as I say, not very important, as it only applies to certain type of cars, or it may result from a change in VRT, or green taxes etc. But the vast majority of cars are guaranteed to depreciate.So insuring for the maximum book value at renewal should be fine... and if the book value goes up the insurance could increase too, for extra premium...
On the issue of professional valuers.. who have to stand over their valuations in court... if they work for an insurance company they will be instructed to state the lowest value they can stand over in court.. if they were employed by the policy holder then the instructions would be to state the maximum value that could be stood over in court.. these values would be quite different I imagine. .. yet they're produced by the same professional, it's just the instructions that are different.