Driving a "write-off"

berkslad

In early 2007 my 2 year old car, which I had bought new, was stolen by thieves who broke into my house and took the keys. The car was recovered by the police three days later with virtually no damage other than a couple of scuff marks. It was recovered by my insurance company from the police garage, taken to their repairer where the "damage" was fixed, the car thoroughly cleaned after the police fingerprint team, all the locks were changed and the car "rechipped" at the manufacturer's local dealer. I got the car back about three weeks after the incident having paid my £100 policy excess. Everyone happy.
20000 miles of trouble free motoring later, I decide to sell the car. First hint of trouble is when the dealer is very sniffy about the car history. I truthfully tell him the story but he says the "marker" on the car's record halves its trade-in value. I pay £20 to get the Experian "Auto-check" report on the car and there it is "STOP - Insurance write-off".
Now to my way of thinking a "write-off" is a vehicle where the cost of repairs exceeds its value. Obviously not the case here.
Long calls to the insurer, being passed far down the chain of operators, have been met by puzzlement, a near admission that a mistake has been made, but no action to date.
Has anyone had similar experience? or can shed any light on what's going on here.

anna42hmr

the only thing i can think of is if the insurance company thought that after the vehicle was recovered it would be a write off so put a marker on the vehicle in error and when it was recovered and the ins co agreed to carry out the repairs they forgot to remove it?

edit sorry, only just noted the comments re little damage, so i am at a loss

Oscar_The_Grouch

There is an insurance database called MIAFTR - the Motor Insurers Anti Fraud and Theft Register. When your car was stolen, the insurer was required to record this on MIAFTR. When the car was recovered, they should have removed the flag. It sounds like someone forgot to do this.

This is all covered by the Data Protection Act and you are entitled to have the flag removed. You need to speak to the insurer you were with at the time and ask them to update the database. They should not have a problem with this.

missile

I would make a formal complaint to insurer and tell them that you will be refering complaint to ombudsman if you do not get a satisfactory response.

mog_ktfc

I used to work in Motor Claims and Oscar is absolutely right; you used to fill out a a form for MIAFTR once the car had been stolen, and when it was recovered you filled out another to get it removed, suspect it is probably all online now. I guess they never removed the car from the register.

berkslad

Thanks to all respondents. The key word in this is MIAFTR. I spoke to Experian and asked them where they got their information from. The guy was very helpful and suggested the insurer had not updated the MIAFTR database. Armed with this, I phoned my insurer and they instantly knew what I was talking about. They appeared to be able to do the update as I was on the phone to them. Apparently it takes 24 hours for the process to work through. I'll check tomorrow morning to see if it has happened.