'Drivable total loss'

Golactico

A sweet old lady very slowly reversed into my car, causing a fairly minor dent to my offside wheel arch. No mechanical damage and has made zero difference to anything other than the cosmetic appearance of my car. I sent photos to the claims management company instructed by my insurer (Ageas) and to my amazement, they told me that my car has been deemed a 'driveable total loss'. They further explained that they consider repair costs to be £2.5K and my car to be worth £3.5K - i.e. not economically viable to repair. Ageas have however confirmed that I am still insured to drive the car. Fortunately, the lady's insurer (AXA) have offered to repair the dent at no cost to me.

My question is, does this 'driveable total loss' assessment automatically make my car a Category N vehicle? No-one has said it does either verbally or in writing (you'd think they would make this very clear?), but my car seems to fit the definition of a Cat N vehicle. I want to know as I gather you are legally obliged to declare Cat N status when seeking to renew insurance or when selling a vehicle.

Thanks for any advice/opinion.

sheslookinhot

AXA, have differed in the “drivable total loss” assessment by deciding to repair it. That removes the concern over the car being classed as Cat N.

DullGreyGuy

Axa have offered to repair it after inspecting it? Seeing photos? Hearing a description?

Insurers may think they get vastly better deals than the next insurer but the differences are small and only become big by volume. If one has deemed it a total loss then its likely the other will agree with the assessment of it being beyond economical repair (esp as there was more in it for the accident management company to say its repairable). 

Unless Axa has seen the vehicle already you may end up in the same position but you are able to ask to keep the salvage in exchange for a reduced payout and its up to you what you do with the cash. 

Aretnap

Golactico said:

 I want to know as I gather you are legally obliged to declare Cat N status when seeking to renew insurance or when selling a vehicle..

You only have to declare things to an insurer if the insurer asks about them - and few if any insurers will ask you if the car is Cat N when you take out a policy. They don't need to - if they want to know if it's Cat N they can just check the database themselves.

In practice the marker would make little or no difference to your insurance price. The only real difference it makes is that if you repair it and it gets written off again the insurer might reduce the payout slightly to reject the effect a Cat N market has on a car's value (not a lot on an old car worth a three or four grand tbh).

facade

It will only be recorded as CAT N if an insurer pays out on it as a total loss.

So if AXA fix it wont have a category.

On the other hand, if AXA write it off as CAT N and let you keep the salvage, you will get about £3000 cash and a car with a cosmetic dent, that is recorded as CAT N, but who cares? 

Repaired a CAT N is worth about 75% of £3500, un-repaired you get to drive a car that owes you £500 with a dent that you can't see from the driving seat.

And if it is a front wheel-arch, you can probably get a second hand front wing in the correct colour from eBay and either change it yourself for nothing, or pay a couple of hours labour for a garage to do it.