Car Insurance Claim - No Fault?

Quentin

Yes you would get the money and keep the car, so if this is an offer from the third party insurer it looks as though their claim against you has now been dropped!

officerwubble

Thanks Quentin. This is a report from the solicitors who have appointed an independent firm of engineers, I don't think there's an official offer yet from the insurers. It's all very confusing, not helped by the fact that I'm loaded with cold and not thinking too clearly!

vaio

officerwubble wrote: »

.....Does anyone know if it's just a matter of it being valued lower according to the Cat C damage, or will I struggle to get it insured?.......

most insurance companies don't care but, as you say, if you make a total loss fire or theft claim in the future you will get slightly less because it's a cat c.

The other problem you will have is that because it’s a cat C you will have to get a VIC done before you can re-tax it (which might be a problem depending on when the existing tax runs out as there is often a 6-8 week waiting list for the VIC)

Otherwise get a scrapyard wing & door and you are back on the road (assuming the existing tax, mot & insurance haven’t run out)

Quentin

Your other consideration is that should this end up being the way this is settled by the third party (ie they accept liability and agree to pay you the £1900), then your hire car provision would end shortly after they pay you. (They wouldn't pay for you to have a hire car whilst the repairs were carried out).

Depending on how long this will take may sway your decision whether to repair or replace.

officerwubble

Thanks Vaio. It's taxed til end of April next year, MOT October. Not sure what a VIC is or what it entails, so I'll need to look into that.

Very good point Quentin, that's something I hadn't thought about. It could mean I'm off the road for a while, which isn't ideal at all. Getting it to a body shop is going to be awkward to, these engineers have deemed it unroadworthy. I've got RAC cover so could get it towed but then I'm kind of stuck with whatever quote they give me. I don't suppose they'll give me a quote without seeing it first.

I've done a search and I can get a second hand door/wing for about £100. Obviously there's other stuff that will need replacing too and labour costs are a total unknown.

If I decide to get rid of it, it would probably make sense to do it straight away then. I'm wondering whether any dealers would be interested in taking it off my hands on a trade in? Obviously I wouldn't get much. Or I'm maybe ebay?

I've had a quick look on Auto Trader locally. I'm not going to get much at all for £2k, I'm really going to have to put a good few hundred towards the cost if I'm going to get something similar.

Quentin

I doubt the RAC will tow it for you as part of your membership cover!

If you get rid "straightaway", and you lose the liability argument is that going to cause you any problem?

You may get a pleasant surprise on how much it goes for on ebay (advertise as "for repair or spares").

If the £2k value isn't the market value of your car, and you can prove it, then point this out to your solicitor. (Remember autotrader asking prices aren't the true market value though!).

officerwubble

Hmm, that is a good point Quentin. I'm not really allowing myself to think along those lines but I do need to consider the possibility.

I've checked on What Car valuations for a car with my mileage and it comes up at £2k. It's only got 40k miles on, so unless I pay, Parkers is no good as it uses average mileage, which is nearer 90k. There's nothing similar on AutoTrader and, as you say, it's not very useful for this purpose anyway. I guess I just need to swallow the fact that what's it's worth to me isn't the market value.

I'm thinking I could just get the wing repaired and the mud guard, make it road worthy at least so I can get about until such time as the claim is done and dusted then think about replacing it then. Ebay might be a good option.

My favoured option would be a time machine. Then I'd pop back to that day and take a different route!

lisyloo

If it's worth more to you than it's financial value, the why wouldn't you want to keep it?

officerwubble

lisyloo, I do want to keep it, my only concern is how long it will take to repair, as I'm going to be off the road during that time. Getting new parts is one thing, finding scrap parts another.

The idea behind getting rid of it in part ex or something would be to get a replacement and be mobile as soon as possible. In reality, at this time of year, there's not a lot available so it might not make a lot of difference.

lisyloo

I wish you the best of luck, but I can't see it being a viable proposition to get rid of it in it's current state.
The only reason someone would want to take on a car that needed repairs that cost money and/or took time would be if they could buy it at a discount to what it is worth so they could make a profit "doing it up". So I can't really see how this works for you as you will have to sell at a discount.
I tried to trade in a car that needed (mechanical) work before hoping that people in the industry would be able to fix it up at trade rather than retail prices. I didn't get anywhere. The full retail cost of the repairs was knocked off the trade-in value.

I would very much agree with the advice from AndrewSmith about reading very carefully any hire car agreement and asking for advice on here about any sections you are unsure about.

Have you dropped this avenue completely?

Although I would proceed with great caution I think the hire car would solve your issues if you can't get access to public transport.