Had accident, no MOT

koolkat66

Yesterday someone drove into me as I was stationary at a traffic light. I reported the accident through my insurer, Churchill, and was told that even if the damage was not huge (a big dent in the boot), they will write the car off. It is a small old Corsa which suited me really well, but obviously worth nothing now. But the problem is, last night I realized I do not have an MOT, since Octber 2020!!! I am always on time with payments, deadlines etc, and how could I have overlooked this, I just cannot understand. I hardly used the car this year - I was shielding,  no work etc, but 5 months? It's like I skipped a year. I am worried the insurance is invalidated now. I haven't informed them yet but I will later.

Norman_Castle

Your insurance isn't invalidated. The third parties insurer are obliged to pay. The lack of mot will lower the value of your car.

Car_54

As above. No need to tell them unless they ask.

AdrianC

Norman's right - your insurance is still perfectly valid. If the car was in a condition that suggests it would have passed the test, then they can't even reduce the payout by much.

The fact the insurer choose to pay the value of the car, rather than repair, is simply a factor of the low value of the car - no more than that. You can ask to retain the car, in lieu of a small proportion of the payment. Replacing the tailgate on a Corsa will be cheap and easy.

For the future, you may like to know that the government offer a free online MOT reminder service.
https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder

koolkat66

Thank you so much for your replies, I feel reassured. A couple of more questions - the insurance's engineer is coming tomorrow to assess the car, which in close examination has more damage than I realize (the back door is mishapen, and the edge around the door, lights broken etc). They are providing me with a courtesy car. I imagine they will claim all of these on the other party insurer, including the company car, but in the event that the other party claim it wasn't their fault, will I end up having to pay back the cost of the courtesy car? Shall I tell the engineer tomorrow about the expired MOT? Aplogies for the silly questions, I have never had an accident in 30 years of driving!

williamgriffin

I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't already know about the lack of mot. 

thegentleway

AdrianC said:

For the future, you may like to know that the government offer a free online MOT reminder service.
https://www.gov.uk/mot-reminder

That’s very helpful; thank you!

Sandtree

koolkat66 said:

They are providing me with a courtesy car. I imagine they will claim all of these on the other party insurer, including the company car, but in the event that the other party claim it wasn't their fault, will I end up having to pay back the cost of the courtesy car? 

Courtesy Car - provided by the garage at their own expense, effectively factored into the hourly rate for labour.

Guaranteed Hire Car - optional extra you pay for up front. Hire car paid for by your insurance

Credit Hire - provided to non-fault parties on credit with a view of costs being recovered from the third party/their insurers

The top two options are covered by your policy and so no matter what happens their costs are paid. Credit Hire will require you to sign a credit agreement and its associated T&Cs. In most cases as long as you havent been fraudulant and support the in their recovery efforts then you will not have to repay costs even if the third party turns out to have given false details etc and so the outlay cannot be recovered... they charge insurers 3x or more what the insurer could pay a direct supplier and so there is plenty of money there for them to cover the occasional case that goes wrong.