Car Insurance and Category D 'write offs'

cepheus · 30 January 2012 at 8:57PM

Did anyone hear the peice on Moneybox about Category D write offs?

Evidently 1 in 8 cars are (Edit Ex-)write offs and are still on the road. Yet some insurers will not pay out on accidents, even with Comprehensive insurance and if it is not your fault! However, they are quite happy to keep taking your premiums without informing you about its status on their database.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox

InsideInsurance · 31 January 2012 at 8:37AM

1 in 8 cars on the road are write offs or 1 in 8 written off cars are still on the road? The former I would find hard to believe and I am sure the "car history" services would be making much more of a song and dance about if were it true.

Did they name names of who wouldn't pay out? Fault makes no difference to if your own insurance pays out or not. I would expect a comprehensive policy to pay out though the valuation would reflect the fact the car has been declared a total loss in the past.

cepheus · 31 January 2012 at 10:58AM

You are correct of course, they are Ex-write offs. The complaint was from a customer with AXA who wouldn't pay up. They eventually paid up on this occasion as a 'gesture of goodwill'' after pressure from Moneybox.

cepheus · 31 January 2012 at 11:08AM

A few more threads here on this subject

Interesting programme this morning on BBC's "Money Box". It would appear that some insurance companies (Axa named) will take your insurance payment but won't pay you in the event of an accident by somebody else if your vehicle is a CAT D.

"If your car is badly damaged in an accident that clearly wasn't your fault and you had been paying your insurance premium, you would expect your motor insurer to pay out. But Money Box has spoken to one listener who has been told not only will his firm not act for him, but his premium will not be returned either. Bob Howard reports. The programme also speaks to Graeme Trudgill from the British Insurance Brokers' Association and also to Malcolm Tarling from the Association of British Insurers."

Worth a listen. I was surprised that there is no one central database that owners can check.

BBC - Money Box

Category A - Vehicle must be crushed. All of it.
Category B - Vehicle may not be returned to road. Parts may be sold.
Category C - Repairable. Possibly structural damage. Cost of damage (at main dealer prices and labour rates) is more than book value of vehicle.
Category D - Repairable. Probably non-structural damage. May have been economic to repair, but insurer doesn't want to.
Category F - Damaged by fire.
Category X - Repairable. Minor Damage

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=486818

forgotmyname · 31 January 2012 at 5:41PM

Unless they ask has it ever been written off because they do not cover those types of vehicles and its upto you to notify them

If they dont ask surely its down to them to check to see if your vehicle is acceptable to them?

They have the resources required to check if any claims have been made on it. Where a HPI check would only show if its written off not crashed and repaired 27 times.

vaio · 31 January 2012 at 6:10PM

forgotmyname wrote: »

Unless they ask has it ever been written off because they do not cover those types of vehicles and its upto you to notify them ......

Yep, I think that's the general rule the FOS apply, if an insurance company cares about something they need to ask clear questions at the proposal stage. If they don't ask then they don't care.

The only fly in this particular ointment is that whilst almost no company asks about write off status there are a few which exclude them in the general assumptions/terms & conditions.

So, the advice has to be answer the questions honestly and read the general assumptions/terms & conditions

cepheus · 31 January 2012 at 6:59PM

The law should ensure the liability is on the person or organisation who is in a position to know about the write off, usually the person who sells it, who then must inform DVLA. In the meantime lets obtain a centralised free database with all the important information about vehicles history. This shouldn't be too expensive, since this information must be available and reported to various sources already.

It is ridiculous to expect each seperate consumer to undertake detective work every time they buy a car. The industry knows damn well this will just push dealer prices up further!

InsideInsurance · 1 February 2012 at 11:34AM

There already are standardised databases in terms of the DVLA (for write offs), the police (for stolen vehicles not yet written off) and the db for checking HPI/ finance.

These databases cost money to run and maintain. If you want the data to be "free" then what you are really saying is you want everyone to pay an extra £3 a year in taxes to cover it. Alternatively there are already plenty of services offering to check all three databases for you for a nominal sub £10 fee

cepheus · 1 February 2012 at 5:32PM

Doesn't DVLA already write down a lot of details from their database on the registration document? How much does it cost to write down one more detail in the interests of improving safety and reducing fraud?

vaio · 1 February 2012 at 7:31PM

How does adding detail to the V5 improve safety or reduce fraud?

InsideInsurance · 1 February 2012 at 7:43PM

In theory you would see the V5 before paying to buy the car but of cause if they are fraudsters they will just claim they've lost it or for some reason they're waiting for it to come back from the DVLA so you still wouldnt see it.

Car Insurance and Category D 'write offs'

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