Car insurance question

Andrew_and_Lisa

A woman reversed into the front of my car. She admitted full liability. I have dash cam footage of the incident too. Despite it being no fault on my part my insurers want me to pay £150 excess and then claim it back from her insurance company after the car has been repaired. Her insurer has contacted me and offered to do the repairs directly and give me £200 to secure my services. However they have said that if their mechanic says the damage is worth more than repairing the car then they will write my car off and give me the value. I don't want my car to be a write off but I worry that they will say it's too costly to repair as it is a 2010 Corsa. However the car is still drivable and there seems to be little damage apart from a few scratches and a small crack on the numberplate.

What would you do here?

DullGreyGuy

Your excess is always payable/deductable, some insurers will waive it in clear non-fault cases where all details of the third party and insurer are available but even then its a gesture of goodwill.

How far have you gotten with your own insurers? Has it been to their garage or seen by their engineer? If so you need to ensure you can withdraw your claim from your policy with no effect before deciding to take up the third party insurer's (TPI) offer else you may find they've incurred costs which the TPI wont reimburse because they duplicate those same costs and so it becomes a fault claim ("fault" in insurance is nothing to do with blame but if the insurer is reimbursed at the end of it all or not).

There is little you can really do to avoid a write off if the damage is materially above the vehicles value. You could ask for a cash in lieu settlement which typically means the VAT isnt paid which may move a borderline case from write off to non-write off but that's about it.

If the vehicle is a write off then you could ask to retain the salvage, this would mean you get paid out less the value of the salvage (typically 10-20% of the total loss value) but you get to keep the car. As long as its a cat N or S write off its a simple job of then returning it to the road, the value of the vehicle will be diminished because its been declared a total loss but you've already been paid out in full and by the sounds of it you intend to keep it until its on its last legs anyway.