alldisc, thanks for the great info!
I have a few further questions, that had been going on in my mind before and may had been posted before, however no one had enlighten me. Hope you could spare the time! Many thanks in advance.
Let's take a Toyota Camry 2.0E new as basis of discussion:
Car new in Langkawi - RM 84,519.61
Car new in M'sia - RM 141,109.10
Different about RM56K.
Here is the case, assuming that car is 3 months old in m'sia, and had a bad accident.
The sum of all the spare parts of the whole car is only RM84,000 (after all the car sell for 84k without tax in langkawi), where as a person will / might / likely insured the car for at least rm140k. The rest of the car is insured for gov tax, not for a valid tangible item (or parts) in the car.
The thing is the insurance company is very unlikely to declare "Total" or "Beyond Economic Repair", even though the car might have been in a very bad accident? Cos if change every single spare part there is, it is still cheaper than the RM140K market value that ins co. have to pay?
I have always wonder about this part, and especially, say in the case of serious accident, the workshop will jack up price, say change everything, and spare parts come up to rm65k(!!) (75% of the original car price without tax) and then proceed to mark up the bill to say rm100k~110K, for the ins co, still cheaper than paying than rm140k right? so, it still tend to side with the workshop to agree to a repair. Is things as how I imagine it? And for this reason, the bengkel and tow truck is such aggressive at arriving at accident scene, cos such is the lucrative side of the business. In many other country where safety is look upon with up most regards, a car at 75% replacement might be declare a "Total"???
I am not implying any collusion of workshop with adjuster, ins co. etc. Just purely from money point of view, the gov tax on the car would have make it such that ins co should side the workshop more, even though the workshop is outlandish in their pricing?
I am in no way associated with any car, bank, insurance or workshop industry. Just curious as a consumer.