Category N write off

XanNi

Hi all, In June of this year my car was rear ended by somebody who wasn't paying attention to the road, subsequently the vehicle was taken to a BMW garage (It's a Dacia) to be assessed for repairs, they decided that the repairs would be at 66% of the cars value and wrote the vehicle off, they agreed to pay me £4560 which was made up of £540 salvage value with the remaining 4020 coming from his insurer, his insurer moaned about the £4020 and i have just received a cheque for £3680 which is still more than the £3000 we paid for the car about 3 years ago. Now that i have received the cheque my insurers have told me they will continue to insure the vehicle for 7 days, but I need to get an engineers report to say that the vehicle is now roadworthy (baring in mind i have been driving the vehicle since the crash as its only minor damage and they told me it was ok to do so).

I was told by the people who did the vehicles valuation that all i would need to do is report it as a total loss to the DVLA but as it was a Cat N I would just retain the log book and need to get the vehicle re-MOT'ed and will then be able to re-insure it. I have tried googling the subject but get a lot of conflicting answers.

I want to get it so that everything is legal, but don't want to spend money when I don't need to. (I'm in a poop situation and this cash will help me and my 2 children no end)

So could somebody in plain English please explain to me what I should do?



Image just to show the extent of the damage, the bumper is intact and not cracked, it's just the plastic coating that's split.

Mutton_Geoff

Firstly take it for an MOT so that it has been judged to be roadworthy by a qualified professional.

Flight3287462

You need to check the floor pan behind the bumper, if that is OK then just source a new bumper or even better a secondhand one from EBay or a breakers yard.  If you are lucky then you might even find one the same colour.  If the floor pan is damaged take some decent advice  on how to proceed.

Looking at the door decide whether you can live with it or not.

XanNi

Thanks for your answers guys, the car is going in for repairs on Thursday, £350 to fix the damage, none of which is structural, I spoke to the DVLA who said they didn't need to be informed. I have just done some insurance quotes but there doesn't seem to be a place I can inform them it's a CAT N, but the value has gone down, so can I take that as they are already aware of it?

DullGreyGuy

XanNi said:

but there doesn't seem to be a place I can inform them it's a CAT N, but the value has gone down, so can I take that as they are already aware of it?

There are hundreds of questions insurers could ask that potentially would have a modest impact on premiums but each additional Q asked you get a few more people dropping out of the quote process. In theory insurers could be checking MIAFTR after you enter your registration plate and apply any premium adjustements based on the results or they simply decide the impact is too small to be worth the effort and wouldnt pick up all the people that have done similar damage to their car but not reported it to their insurers and so are a Cat N but just not formally declared on. 

Aretnap

XanNi said:

I have just done some insurance quotes but there doesn't seem to be a place I can inform them it's a CAT N, but the value has gone down, so can I take that as they are already aware of it?

As a consumer you are not expected to second guess what things your insurer might want to know about. If they want to know something the onus is on them to ask you a question about it - either directly, or by showing you a list of assumptions and asking you to tick a box to confirm that they are correct.

So if the insurer's questions and assumptions don't mention previous write offs, you are entitled to assume that either (a) they don't care or (b) they'll find out by some other means (like checking a database) before they give you a quote. Either way you don't have to tell them.

Mutton_Geoff

Don't think you need inform them at all, the insurer that paid out will have made a note on the insurers database so the car will be tagged forevermore.