So had a minor head on, in my 53 plate astra. Repair estimate is £2100, mostly bits and pieces, paint and labour, nothing serious like chassis. Insurance company want to write it off. It’s a good car and I don’t want it written off. Friends etc have said I can buy it back, get it fixed at a local garage cheaper than the dealer quoted, and get it back on the road. Insurance say it is not their policy to allow me to buy it back. What are my options? What will they do with the car? Also, what tactics can I use to maximise the settlement? First time in this situation, so not sure how to handle it, and can’t believe how easily they are willing to write off a perfectly good car. Are they sponsored by the car industry?

Normally you can buy the car back it’s usually about 10% of the cars value, also consider if the airbags have gone off then can be very very expensive to replace this might be the reason for the writing it off. But to be honest it’s pretty suprising what cars they will write off that don’t need alot spending on them, I think it’s mainly down to the acessor.

Hope this was of help to you

Me Ma tried to buy hers back when she had a minor shunt in the snow this winter. Chassis was damaged, high mileage ~5 year old peugeot 307 cc.

Basically, they would not consider it either, and there was nothing that she could do. She whinged a bit on the phone and got another £100 or so from them, as did my Dad when an old car got a rear end in traffic. He argued that it had just had several hundred quid spent on it the day before in the garage. He got a bit more back.

However, when my Dad had his Pinzgauer 4×4 written off (by a silly speeding bint understeering across a freshly stoned road), the insurance sent it to auction, where the garage/mechanic who did all the work on it bought it. So I suspect it might be a case of knowing where an insurance company will auction it off and taking your chances.

I blame modern cars and crumple zones…

have you / an you get the car back to your place – it gives you a stronger bargaining position.

Buy back if you can and if you can be bothered wit the hassle of repair – especially as a write off will be recorded and it will have lower value in future because of this

Once the car is written off it becomes the property of the insurer, to do with what they like. They may be happy to sell it back to you, but maybe not, not much you can do other than specify it when you first take the policy out.

As TJ hints at, you could make their life hell by keeping hold of it and refusing their valuations etc and hoping they relent. However mine was collected and removed from my drive with little choice, for the assessor to look at. I did get a good price for it though, by sending in a good page full of similar cars in good condition at twice the price they’d first offered, I got me twice the price they first offered too.

Links to a few autotrader/pistonhead ads showing the going price for cars in similar nick might help with the pay out.

As far as getting the car back, my old MR2 was written off purely due to body panel damage. Chassis and engine were totally fine. Insurance company let me buy it off them, but only on the condition that it was stripped for parts and not fixed. It could have been put back on the road relatively easily as well 🙁

they’ve written the car off as the repair cost is more than the car is worth.

First offer will be shocking, go back to them with prices of similar cars for sale on autotrader etc (should be easy with something common like an Astra). they’ll probably charge you to buy it back from them, maybe up to around £500, so ask around and check you can get it fixed for less than whatever the value – £500 is or you’ll be out of pocket

I covered most aspects of a write off here:

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/claiming-on-car-insurance-when-is-a-car-written-off-value-wise

Wow this is not a good week for cars… Surely a 53 plate astra is worth more than £2,100!

My insurers need my V5 document and I need to send the yellow bit to DVLA, surely they have no rights over the car till they have V5? Mine are saying they can’t dispose of my perfectly good, just slightly dented, car until they have V5… Refuse to give them that?

There are 4 levels of write off and only 2 of these are aloud back on the road after repairs, which a cat D and C. If its a cat B then it can be striped for parts but he chasse has to be crushed a cat a has to be cruashed completely.
As the insurance company which cat they have placed it in cause a cat d is the esaist to put back on the road where as with a cat c you have to gat a VIC test done and then reaply for the V5c and get a new MOT done.

Most independent repairers can offer a “contract repair price” to the insurance assessor, which as long as it’s less than 80% of the write-off value, and the car isn’t too mangled, the insurance company will accept. That way you get to keep the car and it isn’t treated as a write off.

When our old Puma was binned, we argued that we’d just spent a few hundred on 4 new tyres & servicing to raise it to a good condition one. It wasn’t really but somehow we got more than market rate!
Careful if you want to buy it back though – we were only going to ‘consider’ it, but they took this as read we would keep it, deducted the fee from the settlement & sent us the settlement cheque 2 days later. On a £1400 payout, the Cat C puma, over 10yrs old & a bit shonky, cost us £500 to buy back.

I crashed my 53 plate Honda Civic yesterday. I estimate the pre-crash value was ~£2500. Expecting a phone call today to say it’s a write-off due to chassis damage.

The tyres are quite new. Some spare alloy wheels are useful too as I will probably get another Civic that they will fit. If it’s written off (cat B,C or D), can I buy the wheels/tyres from the insurer?

Wow this is not a good week for cars… Surely a 53 plate astra is worth more than £2,100

i wouldn’t think so. I picked up a ka from the same year for half that last year. theres an 04 for £1400 here (first one on autotrader)

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201125393301864/sort/priceasc/usedcars/maximum-age/up_to_7_years_old/model/astra/make/vauxhall/radius/1500/postcode/bn24dp/page/1?logcode=p

I expect an 8 year old Astra would be worth £3k tops. They’re simply not desirable cars. Bear in mind that the insurer always prices in a safety margin and will write off at 70-80% of what they think is market value.

Cheers for all the info folks, feel better prepared to negotiate now.

It’s 1.7 DTi EC04 LS model, so a bit rarer and more desirable than the standard 1.7 DTi LS model. Basically a 1.7 DTi engine with adjusted gearing, narrower tyres and body trim to make it more efficient than the standard DTi. I get 60mpg and it’s tax band C (£30 a year). Glass gives a value of £1886 for a private sale on my car. Two similar mileage/age eco4’s are on autotrader now for £1900 (03/99000) and £2200 (53/57000). Glass private sale valuation for these vehicles was £1771 and £1870 respectively.

Any further thoughts based on this info?

Seems like a very marginal right off to me.

How should I use thie above info when the insurance company phone me to settle this afternoon?

My car 53/83000; Trade in: £866; Private £1886; Retail: £2580

Autotrader cars and glass valuation:

03/99000: For sale: £1900; trade-in: £721; Private Sale: £1771; Retail: £2430

53/57000: For sale: £2200; trade-in: £895; Private Sale: 1870; Retail: £2570

Any thoughts on how much insurance company will value it, how much they will offer, and what I can expect to get out of them?

just bend over and accept best you can. see if you can get them to upgrade you to some lube.

My sweeper is £1k max

just bend over and accept best you can. see if you can get them to upgrade you to some lube.

Ha! I’m going to use that if things don’t go my way.

So, Insurance company have started off with a valuation of £1500……but I’m now waiting ofr the file handler to call me – I think that’s the person I will try to negitiate with.

Tips?

Tell them that you should be in the same position after the claim is settled as you were before. You cannot get a similar car for £1500. They will play hardball but they will move.

Juest for the record, I wrote out an e-mail including valuations from Paerkers & Glass, plus links to adverts on Autotrader, private and trade, plus pointed out full service history, Settled at £2k, but had to push, they initially said £1700, then £1800.

When they call back say you have researched and can send them examples of what you will have to pay to get car of said quality and condition. Was your car in good nick? Say to him that when he inspected your car he must have been able to tell it was in v good condition to avg etc etc.

When I had a rare sports car written off the guy I spoke to soon offered me the figure I wanted, but I did have to justify it though.

insurance co.s arent car dealers. if you make a claim and car is written off thats it. by selling it back to you as a business thay have sold a product that is laible to the sale of goods act etc etc so dont want/ need/ cant afford the hassle of private sales so buying back write offs is becoming increasingly rare.

If it was your fault the settlement will be lower than if it was the other driver’s fault.

I got the body shop to provide a “contract price” for a cheaper but perfectly good repair (i.e. using 2nd hand bits and not doing full respray) when I ran into somebody last year. The full price quote would have written the car off but I spoke to the assessor and got him to agree to the lower quote (which also, ahem, covered my excess…)