Auxillis want to scrap my car over a minor bump that was not my fault

mapcr77

Hello,
Any advice appreciated. I was hit by a car at low speed, but got a dent in the boot. Other driver admitted liability on the spot. Contacted my insurance who passed me on to Auxillis. Couple of weeks later I get a letter saying it is a write off.
Local garage says its only a few hundred £ worth of damage. Got new MOT to prove it is roadworthy.
What should I do?

Quentin

See if you can buy back your car by paying for the salvage.by way of deduction

Then repair yourself. (Assuming for some reason you prefer to keep it rather than replace it)

Auxiliary won't be writing it off, the third party insurer will be

Nasqueron

If the car is not worth the cost of repairing it then they won't, they will write it off, it's a commonly believed myth you can demand the insurer repair your car regardless. As above, get the money minus salvage costs and pay for it to be repaired yourself.

mapcr77

The garage said a couple of hundred, it is just a bump on the boot. Seeing online, similar cars to mine go for at least 7 times that "couple of hundred" for the cheapest (some for a lot more), so I cannot get my head around why would anyone think it is not economical to repair?
I went through my own insurance thinking they'd be better off at recouping the costs of the repair from the other, guilty, side!

Is that really the only option available?

If I wanted to do that, what guarantee do I have that they won't take the car away and allow me to "buy it back" for the salvage cost?

Cynical part of me thinks they'd want to fleece me, offer me the lowest estimate of market value, fix it, and flog it at the high end of the value, thus making a nice profit while I'm stuck with an amount that would never replace my car!

dotchas

The insurer will most likely be replacing the boot with a new part then painting etc rather than repair it. When they wanted to write off my Grand Vitara I negotiated and allowed them to use second hand parts. It needed a bumper and back door and the offered me £3500 if they wrote it off. The repairs should never have cost that even with new parts.

mapcr77

Thanks for your reply. Seeing spares online, they range from £50 to £150, plus labour I can see why the garage said just £200. So yes, that's a second hand part.
What concerns me is also if Auxillis has already tagged my car as a write off, I assume my premiums will go up.
Why should I be penalised for another driver's stupidity?

Aretnap

As above, he insurer will be pricing the repair using new parts, a full respray to ensure a perfect colour match etc. For obvious reasons they are not going to get a backstreet garage to bodge it up at mates rates with gaffer tape and parts that fell off the back of a lorry - even if that's what you'd choose to do if you were paying for the repairs yourself. Plus they'll be factoring in the risk that the garage will find more damage once they start work, and it will end up costing more than the initial estimate. So with an old car even minor damage can very easily result in a write off.

If you claim through the third party insurer it is standard practice for then to offer you the value of the car, less the scrap value - they have no contract with you so no right to keep the wreck. What you do with the car then is up to you - if you don't mind second hand parts and an imperfect colour match you could very easily have it repaired and have money left over.

The fact that it has been written off will have little or no effect on the car's insurability. Most insurers don't even ask whether it's been written off. The only practical difference is that if it were to be written off again the insurer would be entitled to take the write off market into account when determining its value and deduct a bit from the payout. Unless you're very unlucky that's unlikely to be a worry.

Quentin

mapcr77 wrote: »

What concerns me is also if Auxillis has already tagged my car as a write off, I assume my premiums will go up.
Why should I be penalised for another driver's stupidity?

The car being a write off won't affect its premium

(Though this claim on your history will have to be disclosed to other insurers you approach for quotes in future and could well result in a premium loading,)

mapcr77

Would this happen even though the other driver admitted liability?

Quentin

Do you mean your premium increase following a claim?

If so, yes usually.

You can see what difference a claim makes to the premium by doing dummy quotes online with and without the claim in your history