Car insurance right off: options and implications

progrocktroll

Hi everyone,

A drunk driver crashed into my car (parked outside my house) at the weekend and sped off. *cue the violins* Luckily no one was hurt and the damage to my car is a few dents in the body work and it still drives ok as far as I can tell.

My insurance company has declared it a write off and given me 2 options:
A) Cash value for the car (minus excess), total of £1450
An offer of £1233 to repair the car myself

If I accept option B, I was wondering:
1. I assume it's up to me if I actually spend this money on the repair or not? I could simply leave the car in it's current state and spend/save the money on something else. Not repairing the car would obviously affect it's resale value but as it's pretty old I'm not too bothered about that anyway and would end up scrapping it in within the next year or 2.
2. Does this affect potential future claims under the policy? Eg: Will the insurance pay out if I have another accident this year?
3. As the car is technically a right off, does this affect getting a MOT etc?

Many thanks
Alan

forgotmyname

Your insurance may request you MOT it again to show its roadworthy, BIL many years ago could only insure his 3rd party afterwards. But he had the money for the car anyway so if anything happened to it there was no real loss.

Spend the money on anything you want. No obligation to repair it.

Aretnap

(1) Correct - if you don't mind putting up with a few dents, and assuming that it is just a few dents and nothing that makes the car unsafe/illegal to drive then you can just trouser the £1223 and keep driving it if you like

(2) A small number of insurers won't insure a car which has previously been written off so make sure that your insurer isn't one of them. Most insurers will have no problem with it however. If it gets written off again then the insurer will only pay out its market value - which will be very low if you don't do the repairs (probably something in the region of the £213 they've assessed the salvage value at). If you do get it repaired then in the event of another accident you should get something closer to the full market value, though there may still be a reduction (20% or so) to reflect the fact that the write-off marker will have an impact on its value even after the repairs.

(3) No, writing it off is purely a financial decision. Obviously the damage itself may cause it to fail an MOT if, for example, there are sharp edges or the doors don't open properly, but if the damage doesn't render it unsafe it will still pass an MOT.