Hail Damage

[Mulva]

So Adelaide was hit by hailstorm yesterday, my VF Calais V is now dimple-textured like a golf-ball. Windows are still intact, just roof, boot and bonnet with small dents all over, possibly some on driver's side too.

You guys over East have had a few of these events in the last decade - what was your experience? I know we are talking averages and guess-timates, but what sort of market price of a car are we talking before they generally become an economic write-off? I'm assuming (hoping) it is only cars worth about $8k or less where the cost of repairs makes it not viable to fix, as I really want it fixed.

And given there will be a ****-load of people in same position as me, what kind of wait times did you have for repairs? Few months, or were there people waiting 6+ months?

Polycarb sheets on shed roof and pergola look like swiss-cheese now too - easy enough to fix, just ****es me off as this weekend will be only our second weekend in the house after buying it in September.

[rare ss]

We had a hail event afew years ago in Perth, there were 100's of cars that were written off, some were high end vehicles as it hit through one of the premium caryard dealer regions

Father inlaw was running the workshop for a major rental car company and they flew in a team on paintless dent removal guys from the states to fix whatever could be sorted

As far as write off's go I'm guessing it will depend of insured value vs damage

[thefargo]

there was a hail storm here in adelaide about 15 yrs ago and my friends VB common door got well and truly hit. His insurance company paid for all repairs above the door handle height.
From memory, he paid extra and had the entire car redone.
Sorry, not sure of the company name.

[slowsnake]

Yes I remember one Perth hail attack, my brothers Commodore owned through his CV Joint business's, looked like raindrops on cement dust, he got paid out, bought the car and only sold it when he sold the business to retire.he drove it everyday to work and back for years, but it was quite new and they just wrote it off, he kept it inthink for $3000 from memory.

[slowsnake]

Talking about high priced F100's, look at these C600's, he has to be on illegal substances to think they will sell, lol.

greenshot screen capture

[fordomatic]

We had a huge hail storm 2 years ago, cars are still being repaired now.

Lots of big money cars written off. My mate had his Prado Kakadu written off vauled at 65k. He bought it back for 3k and then put a new bonnet on it and had the roof repaired for 4k. Still has a few dimples in the side panels though.

Here in Canberra they wrote most cars off but it was a huge storm with bigger than golf ball size hail, it all depends on the assesor. If your car was driveable it took up to 3 months for your car to be assesed here, we had thousands and thousands of cars written off. They've only just finshed going through the auctions now. We had heaps of teams come from Sydney to set up repair workshops.

Once you get it assessed you will know more I guess

[ford71V8]

Our daughter will know soon enough.

Both their vehicles copped an absolute hammering, I don't recall seeing hail damage so bad. The little run around they only just bought and cleaned up only has 3rd party so nothing to do here other than be annoyed. The family 4wd is insured but I'm expecting a write-off.
Some serious damage. Friends parents place had their skylights punched through. Wow, those things aren't flimsy.

[Citroënbender]

Polycarbonate skylights do age - over 15 years the integrity may be suspect. Of course if they were toughened glass roof windows like Velux, that’s a different story.

It’s madness when cars with cosmetic damage are written off in ways that make them unable to be used on Australian roads ever again. There really needs to be a better dialogue on this, between all parties. Only long term winners are insurers as the replacement’s premium is pretty much a certainty to go up.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Polycarbonate skylights do age - over 15 years the integrity may be suspect. Of course if they were toughened glass roof windows like Velux, that’s a different story.

It’s madness when cars with cosmetic damage are written off in ways that make them unable to be used on Australian roads ever again. There really needs to be a better dialogue on this, between all parties. Only long term winners are insurers as the replacement’s premium is pretty much a certainty to go up.

Yeah there seems to be too many damaged vehicles being classed as statutory write offs.To me a stat write off should only apply when there is major structural damage,not a bit of cosmetic like hail or bolt on panel damage.Plenty of people bought hail damaged cars before the stat write off,thing and had cheap transport for many years.As my nephew said about his hail damaged Corolla,it looks pretty good from where I sit when driving it

[oldel]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Polycarbonate skylights do age - over 15 years the integrity may be suspect. Of course if they were toughened glass roof windows like Velux, that’s a different story.

It’s madness when cars with cosmetic damage are written off in ways that make them unable to be used on Australian roads ever again. There really needs to be a better dialogue on this, between all parties. Only long term winners are insurers as the replacement’s premium is pretty much a certainty to go up.

Is that only a NSW thing? I don't think it's the case in WA and I remember in NSW written off cars often end up in Qld because of the stat write off laws in NSW (or Vic).

My old courier got written off in the Perth hailstorm of 2010, proper "golf balled". It sucked because it was a nice 4x4 with the suicide rear door freestyle cab. Nice for work and play: near full size tray unlike dual cabs, canopy, racks, plenty of room in the cab for expensive/electronic tools - or eskies for road trips, and I only got $13k from the insurer for it. Ended up with the BA falcon ute in the rush to get back to work - which was a disaster with it's shockwave paint peeling, rust and trans failure as you know.

Anyway, the cars written off here went to auction and many students or immigrants etc bought them and drove around in hail smashed cars for another 6 or so years. Used to be a common sight but I don't notice many on the roads any more. They probably couldn't get fair insurance for them and just drove them into the ground.
My EL falcon got minor damage (about 5 small dents), skylights got smashed at home.

[GasoLane]

In NSW hail damaged cars are exempt from the WOVR if you've owned the car for 28 days before the damage.

[73 4V XB]

The reason for the stat write off would be because of water ingress. The same reason a flooded car is written off.

In general, if the damage exceeds ~60% of the market value the vehicle will most likely be written off. It’s not all bad though, most companies will pay you out and allow you to buy the vehicle back at salvage costs and you could fix the car by PDR, paintless dent removal, providing water hasn’t gotten into it. Or put 3rd party insurance on it and keep driving it. No company will fully insure a hail damaged car for obvious reasons.

[Mulva]

Thanks all, guess I just have to wait and see. Mine is not too bad compared to some others I have seen from yesterday - someone only 4 streets away copped much (MUCH!) worse than me, and they are literally only 200m away.

Mine is just like small trolley pin dents, just lots of them - maybe 5mm deep and 10-15mm diameter - whereas others have 15-20mm deep and 60+mm diameter.

Wonder if the crazy Covid prices on second hand cars, particularly Aussie cars like 90s and 00s XRs and SSs, means more older cars will be fixed when they would have otherwise been written off if this storm hit 18 months ago. In early 2020 old VT-VZ LS1s could be had for $2k-$5k, and would have been financial write-offs if this storm hit back then...whereas today most of those cars are now fetching $10+k, so if damage only comes out to $5k or $6k I assume those 'older' fleets will now be fixed.

[fiestaz]

Back in 2017 we had a 2000 Holden Commodore S pack with about 100,000kms on it. It was mint and had always been in the family with full History. A hail storm wrote it off for $4500 i think. NRMA replaced the windscreen so it was road worthy prior to inspecting it for damage and writing it off.

The 2015 i30 parked right next to it was repaired, new roof, new bonnet and other dents all repaired. Seemed like a decent job.

The hail was tennis ball size, we had blankets and quilts on top of the cars, which was not enough to stop damage. We may as well have not bothered.

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by fordomatic

We had a huge hail storm 2 years ago, cars are still being repaired now.

Lots of big money cars written off. My mate had his Prado Kakadu written off vauled at 65k. He bought it back for 3k and then put a new bonnet on it and had the roof repaired for 4k. Still has a few dimples in the side panels though.

Here in Canberra they wrote most cars off but it was a huge storm with bigger than golf ball size hail, it all depends on the assesor. If your car was driveable it took up to 3 months for your car to be assesed here, we had thousands and thousands of cars written off. They've only just finshed going through the auctions now. We had heaps of teams come from Sydney to set up repair workshops.

Once you get it assessed you will know more I guess

I remember seeing all the cars laid up in Hume for the assessors and I'm still seeing cars absolutely belted to all **** by hail damage to this day.

It's the worst time to happen with both used and new car values way up due to Covid so I would take an educated guess and say the write off threshold could well be much higher than it usually would be.

[oldel]

Originally Posted by Mulva

Wonder if the crazy Covid prices on second hand cars, particularly Aussie cars like 90s and 00s XRs and SSs, means more older cars will be fixed when they would have otherwise been written off if this storm hit 18 months ago. In early 2020 old VT-VZ LS1s could be had for $2k-$5k, and would have been financial write-offs if this storm hit back then...whereas today most of those cars are now fetching $10+k, so if damage only comes out to $5k or $6k I assume those 'older' fleets will now be fixed.

It could cause a hold up. Here there was many dealers and car yards hit so there was a long wait for appraisal. If there's a hold up and reluctance to write many cars off then there's going to be a long wait until they get extra staff and some huge sheds rented to deal with the work load - likely get staff and repairers from intersate.
Expect to wait a month or more for someone to look at it, and if they're repairing heaps expect 6m+ for repair. They won't repair cheaper cars unless they're not many expensive cars that need repair. It
's better for them to write off the cheaper ones than to hold up the system, pay extra staff, track down old parts.

E: Also assume yours is insured for market value as you're wondering about pay outs. They'll low ball you but treat it like bargaining like you would if you were trying to sell it.

Research and have ads printed out for similar cars for sale, they'll probably offer you 2-5k less than what you average out the ads listing prices you've found. The assessors are going to be tight fisted, but in a rush.

[danzvtil]

My ex BIL works at a smash repairer within the hail zone, their entire yard stock was damaged including fixed customer cars. One of their insurance assessors said this event will take 2 years to get through.
I visited newspot Kia/MG/Suzuki/LDV today, every single car out front and back is stuffed, the second hand ones had paint pen hail pricing on the window 4-5k off retail price, not even worth it. The new ones had signs saying make an offer.
I assume Peter Page Hyundai (ex holden), Rebel Ford and Mitsubishi yards would be the same.
My mum lost 3 poly carb pergola roofs due to hail, and the house in the hills i was working at today went overnight without power, and still didnt have any when i left at 4pm, the lady was charging her phone by running the car.
I saw a windscreen company ute high tailing it up Main North Rd at 6 pm tonight, the back was full of busted screens, they guy looked stressed.
My heart goes out to all the fruit and veggie growers who lost everything out virginia way.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

My ex BIL works at a smash repairer within the hail zone, their entire yard stock was damaged including fixed customer cars. One of their insurance assessors said this event will take 2 years to get through.
I visited newspot Kia/MG/Suzuki/LDV today, every single car out front and back is stuffed, the second hand ones had paint pen hail pricing on the window 4-5k off retail price, not even worth it. The new ones had signs saying make an offer.
I assume Peter Page Hyundai (ex holden), Rebel Ford and Mitsubishi yards would be the same.
My mum lost 3 poly carb pergola roofs due to hail, and the house in the hills i was working at today went overnight without power, and still didnt have any when i left at 4pm, the lady was charging her phone by running the car.
I saw a windscreen company ute high tailing it up Main North Rd at 6 pm tonight, the back was full of busted screens, they guy looked stressed.
My heart goes out to all the fruit and veggie growers who lost everything out virginia way.

I walked past Rebel Ford and Peter Page this afternoon, lots of nice cars damaged.
Black Raptor sitting out the front looked ok, i looked up at the big black clouds overhead and thought, why would you put that out after an event like that and the weather still unpredictable.
The tyre shop next door to Rebels had a new Wildtrak they just did a wheel swap on sitting out the front during it, sadly suffered the same fate.

[Mulva]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

...My heart goes out to all the fruit and veggie growers who lost everything out virginia way.

Yep, guess we'll be seeing the "hailstorm heroes" at the fruit and veg shops again...like this campaign from 2 years back after another October hailstorm: https://apgasa.com/hailstorm-heroes-...rt-sa-growers/

I'll get behind them again.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Mulva

Yep, guess we'll be seeing the "hailstorm heroes" at the fruit and veg shops again...like this campaign from 2 years back after another October hailstorm: https://apgasa.com/hailstorm-heroes-...rt-sa-growers/

I'll get behind them again.

Not sure how it is over there with fruit and veg Farmers, but around here most farmers have crop insurance.

[Mulva]

For many of our crops it's not financially viable to have insurance - margins are too small that insurance is the difference between profit and loss, so many have to take the chance. Was viable years ago, but rising costs to produce and stagnant or reduced wholesale prices when selling has hit many

[BENT_8]

Just spoke with a salesman, he says anything over $20k value will get fixed, anything under is a write off.

Apparently insurers will comprehensively insure but must be disclosed to prevent future fraudulent claims.
I asked as it would make selling stock under finance impossible without full cover.

Its a fire sale, make an offer is pitch of the day.

[arm79]

Originally Posted by Mulva

Wonder if the crazy Covid prices on second hand cars, particularly Aussie cars like 90s and 00s XRs and SSs, means more older cars will be fixed when they would have otherwise been written off if this storm hit 18 months ago.

It will all come down to your policy and whether you have an agreed value or market value.

I had this conversation with my insurer, Allianz, last September. The blunt answer was they don't care how the market is behaving on Carsales.com.au, its based on industry accepted valuation parties.

At the time I had a market value policy, as that's all I could afford, and was told total loss will be based on Redbook values plus or minus small amounts for options and condition. I said the Redbook value was 1/3 the current replacement value, which is market, and was told they didn't consider private inflated sales market.

At renewal, being more financial, I opted for an agreed value policy. My BF Ghia is insured for $8800 and Dad's BF XR6 for $7600. Even then that may fall short of replacing it with something similar. AAMI wanted to insure Dad's car for $4200, which is why he switched.

Even with a yearly agreed value they will only go as high as that. Otherwise its a write off.

Reading in the FG forums, the owners of desirable models are paying for big agreed values. XR6T, F6 and GT owners are insuring for upto $80k incase of the worst. It's the only way to replace with something similar.

[janddbone]

My boss lost three new Chev 2500's, all only 12 months old!

[buggerlugs]

Between cars and houses being damaged by hail seemingly every year now, insurance costs will continue to climb........
They are still fixing house roofs here from a storm 2 years ago............

[danzvtil]

I went into one of the dealers affected to look at a car for my daughter, her grandfather is a crashie so can repair it. The way he explained it, was, insurance has paid out the total loss of value across the yard, handed them a cheque, they can do what they like with the cars. They are NOT on the WOVR. They may repair high value cars like land cruisers or SUVs but the rest will be flogged off as is.
I looked at one, was $14k before, hail price was $9k, he wasn’t really willing to budge from this. In the end it was too hard, I couldn’t get comp insurance on it thru Shannon’s, they will only put 3rd party on a pre damaged car, so no dice.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

I went into one of the dealers affected to look at a car for my daughter, her grandfather is a crashie so can repair it. The way he explained it, was, insurance has paid out the total loss of value across the yard, handed them a cheque, they can do what they like with the cars. They are NOT on the WOVR. They may repair high value cars like land cruisers or SUVs but the rest will be flogged off as is.
I looked at one, was $14k before, hail price was $9k, he wasn’t really willing to budge from this. In the end it was too hard, I couldn’t get comp insurance on it thru Shannon’s, they will only put 3rd party on a pre damaged car, so no dice.

For that sort of money I would be tempted to buy it,put third party ins on it,take the crash risk and put up with a few dents

[Citroënbender]

That’s still a dealer price, $14K original is probably closer to $10K private sale with no stat warranty or niggle fixes - so $9K damaged isn’t really worth it. Would not be surprised if they came back with a better offer in a few days though.

[arm79]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

In the end it was too hard, I couldn’t get comp insurance on it thru Shannon’s, they will only put 3rd party on a pre damaged car, so no dice.

That sounds strange to me.

Once upon a time an insurance company would ask you what you paid for it, and you'd say $9k, then they would say "that's much less than average market value, so why? and you would volunteer because it was slightly damaged. Then they would get to the "does it have any pre-existing damage", which you'd say "yes it's hail damaged".

The typical outcome would be insured for purchase value or maybe market value with a clause exempting them from payouts due to the hail. If you damaged a panel that was already damaged they would expect you to contribute to the repair. Unless the car had been fully repaired in the meantime.

Obviously times have changed. Or maybe its just Shannon's. They always could be annoying at times.

[fordomatic]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

I visited newspot Kia/MG/Suzuki/LDV today, every single car out front and back is stuffed, the second hand ones had paint pen hail pricing on the window 4-5k off retail price, not even worth it. The new ones had signs saying make an offer.

Brand new Oulanders and Xtrails here in Canberra were going for 8-13k at auction. Some seriously cheap cars were going through. I just couldn't bring myself to driving a dimpled car