what happens when your car is a write-off?

joey_2

My car cost me £600 and was crashed into a week after I brought it.
I have got 2 estimates for the insurance and the cheapest one puts the repair cost at just under 1k.
Obviously it would be uneconomical to repair but I was told it's perfectly safe to drive and would pass an mot.
However, several people have told me stories of their cars being "write-offs" and being taken off them by the insurance people and they had to pay to get them back.

The accident was obviously not my fault, the other driver admitted liability. I am fully comp (don't think that makes a difference anyway as was other drivers fault).
I think they will give me a cheque for the "market value" of my car whatever that is OR will they give me the full amount it is insured at???
Will they take my car off me and make me buy it back off them that's basically what I want to know? - surely they can't as it's my property and perfectly safe to drive and doing so would leave me unable to get to my 2 jobs and get my children to school and get my oh to and from work and none of this was my fault anyway!!!!!

MORPH3US

There are a lot of maybe's in the answer to your questions...

I have previously experienced an economic write off where they just paid out the market value of the car and never mentioned anything about the car so I just carried on using it and eventually sold it on....

In the past though I have known Insurance companies pay out for the car and then let you keep the car too but taking the scrap value of the car off the payout amount....

I suppose a lot will depend on the car and its scrap value... a brand new porsche that is written off might still be worth £5k in scrap (guestimating..) so obviously the insurance company will want to minimise their loss by selling it for as much as they can get...

But my guess is that your car (being only worth £600 before) will have to be paid to be scrapped (because of the environmental and transport costs of getting it scrapped) and so they would rather pay you the full amount and let you keep the car...

I suppose at the end of the day it will come down to the particular insurance company and what they feel like doing...

M

DavidHM

There are two possibilities:

1. They will give you an amount up to which they would be willing to repair the car, in lieu of repairing it;

or

2. They will write the car off (maybe taking it off you and charging you to get it back) BUT they will also give you the car's market value (which may even be more than you paid for it, if you got a particularly good bargain).

You can then decide whether to buy the salvage (probably £150 or so) and put it on the road (say another £100) and keep the difference, or just go out and buy another car.

saintjanet

Joey,i was surprised to read that you have fully comp.insurance on a £600 car,i would not have thought it was worth paying the premium,you must have had a really low quote.

Anyway, i would see what the insurance company offer you and dont accept their first offer,the costs involved to repair vehicles are very heavy on labour,that is why the insurance companies often write them off .

no_debts_no_more

As you're insured fully comp (why I don't know on a £600 car), the easiest thing to do is to call your insurer, make a claim, and set the wheels in motion.

They will quite likely take the car away for their own repair estimate, quickly realise it's not an economic repair and pay you, minus any excess. They have effectively bought the car from you in the process of paying out on the claim (and it's likely that there's a term to this effect in the insurance document), although they may allow you the option of "buying" the car back from them, but it is likely that the total of your excess plus what they ask to buy it back will be close to £600, so it may not make sense. If you are lucky, they may not be interested in the bother of disposing of the car, and might let you have it for nothing, but if they've taken it away, this is unlikely due to transportation and storage costs.

This may not be the best route towards saving money, but it is the most convenient. Prepare for higher insurance premiums until your insurer recovers their costs from the other drivers insurer. It will take a lot longer than you think (a year perhaps), although insurers may revise your premium down restrospectively upon a full recovery.

If you claim directly from the other party's insurer, then it would work a little differently. I speak from experience, as my motorbike (insured TPFT) was written off by a car driver pulling out in front of me where I had right-of-way. You make a claim directly against the other party's insurers. With luck you'll get a payout. However, the big difference is that you do not have a contract with the other party's insurer that says that your vehicle becomes their property in the event of a total loss claim that they payout on. I got a payout for my motorbike, and kept the remains (which I've now mostly sold on ebay, making a handy profit on the whole affair).

My car is old, and worth < £500. If someone bumped it to the extent that the bodywork repairs weren't economical, but the car was still roadworthy, I'd ask if they want to settle on the spot, for say £200. It would be advantageous for them if they did. If they didn't pay up immediately I'd call their insurer to make a claim, and inform my own insurer that I had had an accident, but didn't want to claim on my own policy. I'd do this to make sure they didn't change their mind and try to claim off me. I'd drive my car as normal, keep pressuring the other party's insurer and hope for a payout.

MarkyMarkD

saintjanet and no_debts might find it interesting that TPFT insurance is barely any cheaper, for good risk drivers, than comprehensive. So it can be worthwhile having comprehensive insurance even on a car worth very little.

Comprehensive cover also gives you windscreen cover which can be worth a lot.

I'm not sure why no_debts brings the excess into the debate - if the car's worth £600, with a £250 excess (say), and the insurers offer £600 less the excess = £350 but let the customer buy it back for £50, THEN the customer ends up with £300 plus the car. That's worth having, if its driveable, irrespective of the fact that £300 plus the excess is nearly the original £600 value.

saintjanet

MarkayMarkD,you may be right about the insurance cost in certain instances but how do we know the op's circumstances,my insurance costs are quite low for fully comp on a sports car.My nephew HAD to get tpft on his first car as fully comp was more than the car was worth!! My sister in law,full no claims over many years was paying £300 on an old car then managed to get tpft for £120.

joey_2

Thanks to all of you for the advice and info.
I definitely take on board what you say about full-comp. We first had a car that was worth about 3k insured fully comp and when we sold that one and eventually got a cheaper one we just kept the fully comp cos I suppose we just naively thought that was always best (and it is quite cheap for me) I never realised how little you get when it comes to a claim and well I suppose I've learnt a lesson now and will go tpft when I come to renew it in April.
I'm claiming off the other drivers insurance so will just keep driving mine and hope for the best payout I can get although I'm not expecting much any I get will go straight towards a new car.

MORPH3US

Joey, don't just say "i'll go TPFT next time"...

Read what MarkyMarkD said above...

Comprehensive is usually not much more than TPFT... In my case it was £5 difference which is a no brainer....

M

veloo

Same here too! I would always get both quotes, and make my own decision. Sometimes, it is better to get FC, rather than TPFT, particularly if the difference is not much, as FC has other added benefits.
I bought my old car for £300. The difference between FC and TFPT as about £10-15. So I went for FC. Later, I had two chips on my windscreen, which were repaired free.
Now, it is sitting idle at home, as I bought another car, after a minor accident. Another driver side swiped me, and I am claiming, but not on my own policy. Its been a long wait now, about 6 months. Do I need to keep this car, till the claim is sorted?

MarkyMarkD

You can't really get rid of the car until the claim's sorted, or at least until the third party's engineers have inspected it.