Need some advice, on Sunday someone ran into the back of my car. Direct line were the third parties insurance company and have accepted full liability and provided me with a replacement car. I took a call this pm from the garage who have the damaged car to tell me, in their view, its uneconomical to repair!

What are my rights here? surely they have to put my car back together as it was absolutely not my fault?

I had this with an old car.

Went on holiday and came back to a caved in door and wing and a soggy note on my windscreen with a mobile number.

All it needed was a new wing and a new door skin, but the car was only worth about £600 so they wrote it off and gave me about £800.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t mind as I wanted a new car so I ended up with more money if I part exchanged it, and less hassle if I decided to sell it privately.

I understand your frustration though; if you’re not in the market for a new car and you’re happy with your current car and it’s reliable, why should you be forced to buy a new one.

I think you can appeal.

That’s insurance for you. Garage will have priced up the insurance cost of the repair. They’re likely telling you the insurance company isn’t going to pay the garage for the repair and are prepared to write it off. Garage not interested then as they’re not going to get the repair job.

If you paid for the repair itself the cost would be much less. Might want to check how much that is vs your excess plus how much impact it is on no claims if any.

Of course the garage could bill the insurance company at real repair cost, not insurance cost.

An option would be to take a payout, and you could buy the car back off the insurance company dirt cheap as it’s a cat c/d write off and fix it?

Similar thing happened to me, rear light, bumper and rear panel damage.. I didn’t bother though as the car was about to throw some big bills at me anyway, so I just took a settlement.

You use to be able to buy a written off car back from the insurance company.

you could buy it back and fix it but what is the actual damage and is all of the damage known?

Find out what they are valuing the car as and the repair cost and details and go from there.

Had the same issue with a car hitting be from the rear during uni days.

Cost of repairs was more than value of car.

They paid me the value of the car and then subtracted £150 to sell me the car back.

I put on a new rear bumper and 2 cans of spray.

Only problem is that I could only insure it 3rd party as it was written off C grade? So could not use fully comp.
Kept it for another year till the water pump was knocking.

I don’t know if a 3rd party insurance company is ‘allowed’ to write off a car without your agreement? They have no claim to it unlike if you were claiming through your own insurance. Or perhaps you have the right to buy it off them…

Yeh you’ll have to be sure of the damage and do the maths, also if you ever sell it on you have to declare it’s been written off so it might be difficult to shift, unless you just fix it and run it into the ground.
Depends on your circumstances really.

If you paid for the repair itself the cost would be much less.

Unlikely IME insurers loss adjusters hammer down the price of repairs with the garage. Unless it’s at mates rates, they often negotiate better prices than Jo public can get.

It is uneconomical to the insurer to repair.
Doesn’t mean it can’t be repaired or that it requires repairing to be structurally or mechanically sound.

Friends galactic mileage Passat was in a shunt, sustained a crack to the bumper, uneconomical to repair (new colour matched bumper) so he got £400 and the car back, gaffer taped over the crack and continued to run it into the ground.

I had this not so long ago; I pointed out that the three equivalent cars for sale in the UK were greater than 4k more than the ‘market value’ they were offering me. They subsequently offered to fix my car. New boot, window, rear bumper and exhaust….£7200!!!! 😯

Had this last year, car bumped into the side of me taking out the driver side rear door and the wheel arch.

Bill to fix was £1850 the car was worth £1800.

I got my car and ~£1700 from the insurance company. I found a scrappers with another door and a fella who is NOT on the “approved” list of insurance repairers (but had been repairing bodywork all his life and has all the equipment) and he did the lot for £500 (£110 for the door). It was Ford metallic panther black, and I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t tell it had been repaired to a “lesser” standard.

It passed it’s MOT 10 days later.

IMO “approved” repairers are not cheaper (let’s get a whole new door from ford and then start messing with panels) and insurance companies don’t care as they’ll pass all the costs on to either you or the other person.

geoffj – Member
Unlikely IME insurers loss adjusters hammer down the price of repairs with the garage. Unless it’s at mates rates, they often negotiate better prices than Jo public can get.

There’s some speculation that if it’s a not at fault claim the insurer will push for higher cost repairs which they can take a larger slice of.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/motorinsurance/9780658/Insurers-cash-in-on-your-crash.html

When I got a bust windscreen there was some funny stuff going on if I tried to go via different repairers to the approved where the amount the garage would quote is much higher for an insurance claim than non insurance. Reasoning some were saying is the insurer is happy to pay more as they charge an excess to the customer for not using an approved repairer.

Basically while the payment to the repairer is higher, they can claim more and the percentage take may be higher.

If it’s your fault and you use approved repairers though then they’ll drive the costs down.

spooky_b329 – Member
I don’t know if a 3rd party insurance company is ‘allowed’ to write off a car without your agreement? They have no claim to it unlike if you were claiming through your own insurance. Or perhaps you have the right to buy it off them…

This.

They need to put right the damage caused by their client, doesn’t matter if it costs ten times more than the cars value…

My dad lost a volvo t5r to a drunk Driver whilst it was parked on the street. He basically couldn’t get another one with what they basically offered.

I don’t know if a 3rd party insurance company is ‘allowed’ to write off a car without your agreement? They have no claim to it unlike if you were claiming through your own insurance. Or perhaps you have the right to buy it off them…

This.

They need to put right the damage caused by their client, doesn’t matter if it costs ten times more than the cars value…

No not this at all. Please ignore this advice, it’s misleading, and just plain wrong in all sorts of ways.

You have a common law duty to mitigate your losses, ie keep them to a reasonable minimum. In law, you are also entitled to be put back in the position you were in prior to the accident.

The “tests” for these, are that, if your car was say, worth £1000, and the repairs are say £900, and the “salvage value” of the remains are say £200, then the car is not repairable. You get £1000, the insurer disposes of the remains and recovers £200. Total cost £800. The alternative is to spend £900, which is a greater sum, thus not keeping losses to a minimum.

Common sense says it has to be this way. Firstly, dependent on the damage, you might not even be allowed to keep the remains. When a car is declared a total loss, it is generally graded A,B,C, or D (sometimes known as x).

A the remains MUST be crushed, by law, as they are. Typically this applies to cars which have been stolen and burnt out, or other heavily fire damaged cars. They generally have a nil salvage value, but must be disposed of by a licenced salvage agent.

B is where the inspecting engineer believes there has been significant distortion to the bodyshell, and the vehicle may only be broken for parts. The shell must be crushed, by a licenced salvage agent. Little salvage value, typically 5%.

C is the more common, generally, where the cost of repairs outweigh the cost of repair. Your car is likely to be this. You may keep this, but it could be subject to a vehicle inspection check, fresh mot, and may not get comprehensive cover til you can prove you put value back into the vehicle, ie repairs.

D Is a curious one, where the car IS repairable, but if it were broken for parts the remains would fetch more than the repaired car. For example, an older car with hard to source parts, like say a Porsche 944, might be worth £2000, but with a rear window alone possibly being £500, it’s cheaper to pay out the total loss.

The law suggests you are “back into the position prior to the accident, when you receive either a repaired vehicle back, funds to repair, or the value of the total lossed vehicle. It has to be this way, otherwise people would take 6 months to find a like for like replacement vehicle and try to claim hire charges or loss of use for all this time. Basically the law treats your car as a asset of value, and its when you are back with that asset value, you are back in equity.

Its not the “insurance company” as such total lossing your vehicle, but a qualified motor vehicle engineer, often independent, who are assessing the value of the vehicle. Particularly independents, they have a duty to write their reports not for you, or the insurer, but as an expert instructed to write a report for the court. If he says its a total loss, then that’s his expert opinion. You can of course challenge it, like you can your Dr, but his opinion initally carries the weight. If it can’t go back on the road, as cat a or b, it cant, no matter what you or your insurer desire. And it shouldn’t make a difference if its your insurer or the third party insurer.

I recently went through this, although I have to do it as part of my job anyway, I was hit from behind whilst stationary & the bumper was damaged, I claimed for a new bumper as I didn’t want it filled only to crack at the slightest future knock. I was told they couldn’t authorise it but I could claim for whiplash & a hire car that I hadn’t asked for 😯
The world has gone bonkers!

Edit due to Jujuuk68 massive & informative post, you have the right to go to adjudication if you don’t like what you are offered & you will win if they can’t prove that the money offered will provide a like for like replacement.

I got t-boned in my Volvo S80D and it was written off by the insurance company. I was spitting teeth as I’d just spent 2K on it (boring stuff like suspension, new tyres etc). I got £1800 👿

They wouldn’t sell it back to me either.

Someone drove into the back of my already battered old landrover once; bent the rear crossmember and creased the panel above a little bit. Insurance blokey who came out offered ‘cash in lieu of repairs’. Basically they offer an amount of money to get it sorted myself. Suited me. One shiny, straight and dent free corner on that old beasty would have looked decidedly odd!

Have you asked how much the bill is compared to the value they place on the car?

When our old, but very nice 406 was written off, the difference was only £100. I paid this and they repaired the car.

It would have cost £80 to swap Mrs Z’s personalised number plate over, so for the sake of £20 it was worth it.

Off course, she had another prang 6 months later that really wrote it off.

Guy who sits exit to me at work had an interesting one.

His house was broken into and his high-spec Q7 was stolen off his drive, but recovered the next day when the tracker was activated.

He went to see it in the police compound, no visible damage – just needed the locks replacing/recoding. When it went into the garage, it came back as uneconomic to repair – the cost of repairs detailed by the garage spookily coming out to just under the Glasses value.

Eventually, he met the insurance adjuster at the garage and they agreed that just the locks needed doing…