Car accident (not my fault)

Sponge_Cake

My car was driven into today, the driver of the other vehicle took full responsibility and I had a phone call from her insurance company about 10 minutes after getting home. 

They’ve told me they will deal with it their end as the driver has taken full responsibility.

The side back door on the driver’s side is damaged and a family member has said it may be a write off due to cost of body work and the repaint plus labour, may be more than value of the car.
What happens if it is? Can I still drive the car? Do I get to buy a new one for the same price from the insurer? This is all new to me. 

It’s a 2014 Reg car with around 41,000 miles on the clock.

My other issues are: my son’s car seat was in the car at the time of impact, but not him luckily. I was on my way to collect him from nursery. Can I ask the driver’s insurance company for a replacement? As I know they’re not safe once they’ve been in an accident.
I’m also getting pains in my neck and shoulders, also down my leg this evening. When they asked me about injuries initially I said no, because I was quite shaken up and didn’t think there were any. Now I’m getting pains...should I contact a doctor tomorrow? And should I tell the insurers too?
The insurance company dealing with me are LV. They are providing a courtesy car too. 

Sponge_Cake

The cost of the car is around £4,000 and it had a full service just yesterday! Which cost me £380  I’m feeling so upset and shaken by it all, not sure I’ll sleep tonight. I really hope it’s not written off, it’s a lovely car, doesn’t use a lot of fuel, easy to drive and low mileage. I’ll be gutted.

TELLIT01

The child seat will be perfectly OK still unless it was hit by the door.  The seat wasn't in use so there were no forces put through it which could cause damage.  Yes, contact your GP about the pains, and contact the insurers too.  It's not unusual for pain not to be felt initially.

daveyjp

Very good chance it will be written off.
You can claim for a new car seat.
Your courtesy car is more likely to be a credit hire car, whilst LV are your insurance company which company is dealing with your claim?  It is sometimes outsourced.
If the car is written off the courtesy car will probably be taken away.
If you are injured you need to call the inusarance company and begin the process for a personal injury claim.

Aretnap

If the car is written off, you'll get a cheque for its market value. What you do with the cheque is up to you; you might decide to buy something as close to the old car as possible, you might decide to take the opportunity to upgrade to something newer and bigger, or you might decide you've had enough of driving and spend the money on a holiday instead. The insurance company won't source a car for you.

If the car is not too badly damaged and you want to keep it you can ask to. The scrap value will be deducted from the settlement, and you can look at getting it repaired yourself. The insurer will consider it a write off if the cost of a comprehensive fix is more than it's value - including new parts, a respray to ensure a good colour match etc. If you don't mind second hand parts, an imperfect colour match and/or you can put up with a few dents it could be that you can get it fixed for less than the settlement cheque and have money left over. Obviously you should get an estimate for the repairs before you go down this route. 

TELLIT01

What is the definition of 'Market Value'?  Is it the cost of purchasing a replacement vehicle of similar spec and condition, or the price you would get as trade-in?  Clearly the figures are very different.

[Deleted User]

It will be what you would pay for a similar vehicle. So if you are say the second owner it would be the price of a similar car with two previous owners from a reputable dealer.

You will need to then shop around and haggle a bit. So given the choice if you can get your car repaired for less than they offer you that might be good option.

TELLIT01

[DELETED USER] said:

It will be what you would pay for a similar vehicle. So if you are say the second owner it would be the price of a similar car with two previous owners from a reputable dealer.

You will need to then shop around and haggle a bit. So given the choice if you can get your car repaired for less than they offer you that might be good option.

That's good to hear as the payment 'back in the day' used to be based on 'book value' i.e. trade in price, so nothing like the cost to replace.  I know there was talk some years ago of making insurers pay replacement value but I didn't know if that was now the case.  Thankfully I've never been in a position of having to find out.

Funny though that many providers of household contents insurance pressurise claimants into using their preferred suppliers as they can get the items at competitive prices through them, but I haven't seen the same with motor insurance.

jimbo6977

TELLIT01 said:

[DELETED USER] said:

It will be what you would pay for a similar vehicle. So if you are say the second owner it would be the price of a similar car with two previous owners from a reputable dealer.

You will need to then shop around and haggle a bit. So given the choice if you can get your car repaired for less than they offer you that might be good option.

That's good to hear as the payment 'back in the day' used to be based on 'book value' i.e. trade in price, so nothing like the cost to replace.  I know there was talk some years ago of making insurers pay replacement value but I didn't know if that was now the case.  Thankfully I've never been in a position of having to find out.

Funny though that many providers of household contents insurance pressurise claimants into using their preferred suppliers as they can get the items at competitive prices through them, but I haven't seen the same with motor insurance.

Car insurance has been based on replacement retail value since at least 2001 when I started working in the industry, and as far as I know it had already been that way for some time. 

The "book" contains 2 values, a "trade" one and a "retail" one. It is the "retail" one that applies to consumer insurance claims. The "book" "retail" value is based on retail prices achieved by thousands of dealers all over the country. It is occasionally possible for the "book" to be unreliable when dealing with rare cars, or rare instances where bizarre regional price variations arise in respect of a particular model of car. These circumstances are unusual and very unlikely to apply to a £4k car from 2014. 

Household insurers prefer claimants to shop through approved suppliers to keep costs down, but this does not normally apply to cars because cars are not usually replaced on a new-for-old basis. A brand new Whirlpool model ABC123 washing machine is the same as the next brand new Whirlpool model ABC123 washing machine that comes off a production line. However, you could line up a dozen 7-year-old Renault Clios with identical spec and each one would be different from the others, due to how it's been (mis)treated during its life.