Total loss, repairs less than value

agentcain

..........

sal_III

It's a write off if the repairs is about 70% or more of the value, doesn't have to be greater.

You should be given an option to get a cash payout and keep the car for a small amount (about 10-20% of the payout) then repair it yourself if you want. The write off goes in the database either way, so if/when you come to sell it will be visible to buyers.

chrisw

The decision over whether to write the car off is entirely at the insurers discretion. 

Provided they pay you the market value, they can write it off over a dent if they so wish. 

The disputes arise over what is the market value or what they are prepared to sell you the salvage for, if indeed they will sell it to you. Some will have disposal contracts and be reluctant to sell privately outside of that.

OnanTheBarbarian

Insurers are getting exceptional salvage settlements these days, so they have the horn for writing cars off a lot more. So they are often better off by paying the write off and then getting a nice big fat cheque from Copart for the salvage than they are paying for repairs.
Cash in-lieu is one way, but they will just give you the repair costs less the VAT until you can produce a repair invoice showing ful repairs paid.
In the first instance I would just demand they authorise repairs as it is economic to repair the vehice. Usual threashold insurers apply to writing off a vehicle is if repairs exceed 65% of pre-accident value. Get a second estimate and if it is less, send them that.

paddyandstumpy

Don't listen to the 'advice' on motorclaimguru. 

There is a long running thread on here where the 'advice' given on there is regularly mocked and called out for being total tosh. 

wongataa

How would you fix bent chassis parts?

dacouch

Why is the Insurance being cancelled if it's written off, are you not replacing the car?

dacouch

agentcain said:

Its written in Admiral's policy
If the car is a total loss, the policy is cancelled. Which probably means I lose the rest of it

Admiral will allow you to reinsure a replacement car on the remainder of the policy if you do so within a reasonable amount of time. Thus if you're replacing the vehicle you should remove the cost of that from your calculation as you would have paid the premiums anyway irrespective of a claim 

dacouch

agentcain said:

page 32, section 10
"If your car is beyond economic repair, all cover, including the driving of other cars extension if applicable, will be cancelled for you and any other drivers on the policy"

Is there something Im missing? I will ask them anyway.

What you're missing is you're with Admiral, they tend to out a lot of small print in their policies that is unenforceable.
They will allow you to reinsure a replacement car to use the remainder of the policy providing the replacement car is acceptable to them and it's within a reasonable amount of time (Probably about 2 to 4 weeks).
Try calling them and asking them, I think even Admiral are aware they are obliged to cover the replacement car now, if the person tells you no, mention to them the Ombudsman requires them to 

Jumblebumble

agentcain said:

That is very interesting! Thanks for this advice
I also got word from a salvage company sellthecar.com . They estimated the car in the £1000. The insurer allows me to buy the car back for 515. So there is a benefit there. What is my course of action here? Currently the insurance company values the car at 4300 pre accident, and they offer to write it off  and sell it back to me for £515. If I go back to tell them that the salvage is 1000 instead of 515, would that help me to make them reconsider either the initial value or the salvage value?

How do they determine the write off using value of car, salvage value and repairs? Is it value of car against repair+salvage? That would be £4300 vs 3700+515=£4215. Since 4300 is close to 4215, they deem it economically
totaled. But if it is 3700+1000=4700 > 4300 would that mean that it is better to repair it? How does it work, Im confused


As previously stated the insurance companies will typically have an agreement that Salvage yards take all written off cars in return for 15% or thereabouts  of their value.

 This is the figure the insurers will use and they will not be interested in what sellthecar.com think it may be  worth
 Be very careful with insuring a writeoff that you are totally upfront and I would clarify this before buying back the car

dacouch

agentcain said:

paddyandstumpy said:

Don't listen to the 'advice' on motorclaimguru. 

There is a long running thread on here where the 'advice' given on there is regularly mocked and called out for being total tosh. 

I got a response by him.Cant really say I liked his response. He basically called me naive. So I guess there is some value to that topic. You don't insult your potential customers and completely ignored the whole picture. Not really satisfied.

Where was this conversation where he called you naive, it would be interesting to see it.
A significant amount of the advice he gives on the HJ site is simply wrong, I have a thread running of some of his worst advice as it amuses and shocks those of us in the forum who understand Insurance