Accident - MOT expired - advice please!

Wig

The storage yard should leave your car in the same condition until the whole matter has been resolved, Had I been there I would have told them That I had photographs of the condition of the car and was fighting for a repair with the insurance company and could even end up doing a self repair and pull out from the claim alltogether - just to frighten them into realisng that they are damaging your property and they would be liable for any extra costs involved.

Without seeing the damage we can't really comment on possible back street repairs, the radiator could be punctured, the front frame could be distorted. A bonnet could be sourced from a scrap yard for a cheap repair, as could a bumper, for that matter, a whole front end could be sourced from a scrap yard and welded on. Your problem is
*not knowing a good back street repairer
*The car is in storage so getting a back street repair man to give you a quote is obstructed but not impossible.
*The storage yard will want paying for storage, if you were to pull out of the claim you could be landed with the storage bill.

Yes if the insurance co. expects to get the premium back this could be influencing their decision by say, nudging the assessor to give a high repair estimate to ensure a write off.

When I have a bump, if the car is at all driveable I will drive it (or tow it) home rather than let it go to storage, because storage always compicates things. If it needs to be recovered you can instruct the recoverer to take it to your home (if it's not too far).

Probably the best thing to do will be to let them write it off, and if you want to, ask a back street body shop to go and look at it for a repair estimate using scrap yard sourced panels/parts. Buy the car off them if he thinks it's worth it. However it sounds like the storage yard has not treated it with the care required so a repair is becoming less and less likely. Depending on what happened after the accident it may be that the insurer had nothing to do with the recovery or the choice of storage yard, that might have been down to you or the police. If it was the insurer who aranged recovery I would write an official complaint about the storage yard's actions to your insurer.

sarriep

Thanks. The garage that has the car was all arranged by the insurance company. It's not a storage yard I don't think - it's an accident recovery centre and they had a lot of recovered - written off - cars there. My OH is going to ring tomorrow and see what the offer is. Have checked our policy and it says
' ..in the even of a claim/ loss the full annual premium is payable...'
so with that being nearly £300 I thought that would influence them.
I will get him to ask about the possibility of buying the car back and getting it repaired. I do know someone who does car bodywork so may be able to get him to have a look. My husband said the bonnet was missing altogether. They had taken all the 'extras' out of their places in the car - fire extinguisher etc and had forced open the glovebox (with the dodgy catch) and emptied that. They certainly didn't seem to think we'd consider keeping the car.

dacouch

The balance of the premium being due does not influence an Insurer about a car being written off or not, it is calculated by the value of the repairs as against the cost of the repairs. Generally if the repairs are quoted at more than 60% (It can vary with Insurers) then the car is a write off. For you car not to be a write off, the car would need to worth in excess of £4000