Car written off?

booey1

Hey

So someone crashed into our car and the garage says the car maybe written off as the work to fix it will be about as much as it is worth.

We have to advise the insurance company if we want it written off or repaired.

What happens if it is written off? Will the insurance replace the car with another same model same year? Will they just give us a cheque for what it is worth or will they give us an insured amount if we have specified how much the car was worth/insured for?

Pretty confused, but don't want them to write it off if that's a bad idea

Foxy-Stoat_3

Its up to the engineer if its beyond economical repair, not a garage.

They will only replace a like for like vehicle, or used to, if its less than 12 months old and you bought to brand new.

If its written off then they will offer you a figure, less your excess. This SHOULD be the market value, not what you bought it for. Once you get the offer, go on autotrader and ebay and see how much similar car/age/mileage are advertised for and see the completed listings. This should give you an idea if the offer is a fair one or not.

TadleyBaggie

I had a car written off recently, I reckoned it was worth 12K tops. I almost fell off my chair when Aviva valued it at 13.5K.

paddedjohn

Foxy-Stoat wrote: »

Its up to the engineer if its beyond economical repair, not a garage.

They will only replace a like for like vehicle, or used to, if its less than 12 months old and you bought to brand new.

If its written off then they will offer you a figure, less your excess. This SHOULD be the market value, not what you bought it for. Once you get the offer, go on autotrader and ebay and see how much similar car/age/mileage are advertised for and see the completed listings. This should give you an idea if the offer is a fair one or not.

If you are not claiming on your own policy you won't have to pay any excess. If its written off you should get market value and you may have the chance to buy your car back and get it repaired yourself.

Hintza

This will be declarable and will affect your insurance premiums / NCD in the next five years so you will want to claim for that too.

Wongsky

One thing to remember, though - before anything is settled and documents are signed, it's your car. If the damage is repairable, and a settlement preferable, you can still decide to do that.

Coulrophobia

Having recently had another car written off ,the second car in four years, both cases the third party was 100% to blame I have found different companies have different ideas of market value.

The first right off was a VW Polo and ended up with about a third of the purchase price (the car was four years old). for the money we got back it was impossible to source a same spec, same mileage car - The insurance company with the red telephone on wheels - though justified that figure with a lower spec higher mileage car, and backed up their point with 'you could negotiate for months, during which time the value will fall' to cut a long story short - we settled.

Four years later (a couple of weeks back) the car we replaced the VW with, A Mitsubishi, was written of in what can only be described as a freak accident whilst on the drive at home (it was hit by a run away car!!) the home CCTV caught the incident and LV have paid out over the market value. Not expecting that though i was prepared to challenge them to get a same spec car for the offer instead of a cheque, but i didn't have to do that, instead we banked the cheque.

On looking around for a replacement car and deciding not to bother with a new car - let someone else pay the depreciation, we have settled on a replacement. While looking at insurance quotes though I found something which could explain the differance in payouts. If anyone else wants to try it the results would be interesting.

If you use compare the market and on one of the early 'get a quote' screens you enter a reg number for the vehicle and the system there and then gives an insurance value (using industry methods etc etc) in our case the value was a couple of thousand quid less than the asking price at the dealers - hence some negotiation on price, but not much. the insurance value was £10,100.
Tesco compare use a similar system, claim to use 'industry standard methods etc etc' but valued the same car (same reg) at £9,100 (on the same day)- so the prospect of a £1,000 black hole right away.

If anyone else gets similar results it could explain a few things. Also it explains the pushing of GAP insurance!

missile

:huh: You said you wrote of two cars and then discuss payouts from three different insurers ......

Coulrophobia

missile wrote: »

:huh: You said you wrote of two cars and then discuss payouts from three different insurers ......

my poor gramar.

first car written off - paid out by direct line - lower than a replacement could be found for.

second car written off a few weeks back - paid out by LV at a bit over 'book' value.

while looking around for quotes for a replacement i checked on compare the market and it gave an insurance value, for the car we intend to buy, of £10,100. Tesco compare using the same car registration i.e. for the replacement gave an insurance value of £9,100. That makes a difference of £1,000 lower, the premium payable wasn't much less for the insurance on the replacement (from either site)- BUT i would assume (maybe wrongly) that should the replacement car ,god forbid, get written off any settlement would start off £1,000 lower than the equivalent policy sourced via the quotes from 'compare the market'.

I understand the the DTI are looking into the practice after numerous complaints.

p.s I didn't write any cars off, the insurance companies did, and in neither accident was I to blame.