Insurers want to write off our car - what can we do?

MDZ

Hi all,
We are a bit desperate as we are not sure what to do. Our house was burgled, they found the car keys and took our car away. The car was abandoned not far away from our house. It seems it only had 2 slashed tyres when it was found, but it was dark and we couldn't see the extent of the damage.
The car was taken to a garage to be fixed, it is an old car from 2003 but it runs smoothly and it was in very good condition. It only has 68000 miles. The garage sent an initial quote to the insurer for £870 and the insurer (Admiral) approved it. They communicated this to us on Thursday. On Friday morning, we called the garage to check if they were cleaning the interior of the car because some crack smoking pipes were found inside the car, the thieves left them behind. We didn't mention to the garage what it was actually found, we just told them it was drug paraphernalia and we have small kids and wanted the interior deep cleaned. We also mentioned to the garage that we wanted to have a courtesy car while the repair was done.
The same day, the garage sent a new quote to the insurer and increased the cost in £200 and now the insurer notified us of a total loss, our car will be cat D and we have not been told yet how much they will pay to us.
We are not happy with this at all, we think the car should be fixed and we have the feeling the garage might have increased the quote because we mentioned we wanted a deep clean that we were willing to pay for and the courtesy car.
We want to ask the insurer to fix our car, their engineers have not seen the car, just the pictures and reports the garage sent to them. What can we do? Can we ask them to send someone to check the car in person? could the garage be inflating the quote because they don't want to work on the car due to the drug paraphernalia we mentioned?
Please help! we would like our little car to be back on the road, it is not fair to classify it as Cat D and write it off
Thanks

zaax

The extra quoted for a full valet and a hire car is about right. You may find the car will not run the same as the thiefs would have ragged-it (reved it very hard) and crashed though the gears.

dacouch

Why don't you take the write off payment for your vehicle and then (Assuming Admiral offer it) buy the salvage of the vehicle off them for circa 15% of the write off value.

If the vehicle needs only minor repairs, you'll probably find the garage or another garage will be able to carry out the repairs for a fraction of the amount they quoted the garage.

P.S You cannot force your Insurer to repair the vehicle

Quentin

Cat D classification looks correct.


Your insurer does have the right to deal with this as they think fit.


Though ask them if you can buy it back (by way of a deduction from the settlement) if you want to keep it and repair it/clean it yourself.

MDZ

Thank you everybody for the replies

The extra quoted for a full valet and a hire car is about right

They are not including any of that in the new quote they sent to the insurer, the extra charge was about some additional damage to the suspension but we have the feeling they have inflated the quote the minute we told them about the drug paraphernalia, because they think the car was full of needles ...

Can an insurer tell us they are fixing the car and without any explanation send to us a write off letter(email)?
Is there any way we can ask the insurer to review the quote provided by the garage? I think you are entitled to a second opinion but we will have to pay for the towing of the car, is there any way they can send an admiral engineer to the garage? is that something we can request?

jonesMUFCforever

I had a friend who bought their car from the insurers. Is this an option?

MDZ

I had a friend who bought their car from the insurers. Is this an option?

We don't know if they will allow us to do that because in the letter they sent to us one of the FAQs is "can I buy the car back?" and the answer is "It is not our policy to allow this". If they let us buy it back, it will be a Cat D car, will it be easy to get insurance for it?
The insurance company sent the write off letter late Friday afternoon and we cannot talk to them until tomorrow so we wanted to know what our rights are.

Quentin

It looks like buying it back is not an option with your insurer. So all you can do is ask (it isn't a "right"

Insurance for a cat d wouldn't be a problem

As previously posted your insurer can deal with this however they choose to, but your suggestion that the garage have 'found' more work just because they don't like the dirty interior is unlikely!

You can certainly ask them to review the cost and make it clear you don't want it written off if at all possible, but again you cannot force them to do repairs rather than write it off

EdGasket

You can withdraw the claim and take back posession of your car but you'd then have to pay to have it cleaned and anything fixed. This might not be much more than your excess though if there isn't much wrong with it.

Mungo76

The choice to keep the salvage is always yours regardless of the policy wording (salvage even), the FOS don't look favourably (around £500.0) if salvage is disposed of without your express permission.

The underwriter would then deduct the salvage value from the settlement.


**** just my opinion here ****

Regarding this car though, I understand the position, if drug use has gone on, this would get treated similarly to vehicles involved in fatalities/heavy injury - you just CAT d them - the seats are soiled, potentially with drug paraphernalia, potentially with bodily fluids - the garage would be right to bump up the cost of a valet/increased risk/extra PPE/disposal costs/ HEP A & B injections for staff, potential injuries during repairs and when the car goes back, and on and on.........

kamil089

How long has the case been going on?