Insurance write off Question

yes, just write to the insurers asking to keep salvage (they will reduce payout accordingly) or better still ask about it on phone, then if they take piss with reduction you can negotiate and decide what you want to do, and then follow up that conversation with a letter agreeing with the deal agreed on phone!

HTH

Lost

You could maybe just process the claim with the 3rd party insurer directly. They'll write it off, but it's not their problem to collect it etc. so you should get to keep the car and get full payout of its current value (which you can haggle on the phone with them as well).

Good luck.

Firstly, it's _your_ car (in the assumption that it is your car, of course ;-))

So you can do anything you like with it - within reason. As to whether the insurance company will let you keep it, and still have some kind of claim, that's a different question.

A year or two back, I had a car that was written off by an insurance company - it wasn't for damage reasons, though, it hadn't been crashed, it was the cost of putting back what had been stolen. I asked them about the salvage / buying it back thing, and they insisted it was against their policy, and that they wanted cars that had been in that situation off the road. As it turns out, I don't think the car was taken off the road - I suspect it went to auction, but it wasn't something I was _that_ bothered about - with hindsight, it was probably the easiest option for me.

I have wondered about the situation when you're claiming off a 3rd party insurer, though - surely it's not their place to write-off the car - surely it's merely their place to put right the damage, whether or not the cost approaches or exceeds the cars commercial value.

That's right, but you could still regard it as written off. It's not classed as that, but they regard it as that (car worth too little to bother fixing), so they give you the car's value in cash instead and settle the claim as that.

Someone in my car club was refused all chances to buy back his classic car. he was gutted

i bought mine back

That's the reason I have the TR insured thru a club scheme that doesn't write off the car. For what turned out to be an extra £30-odd on the premium they agree the value of the car, and you get the value plus 25% for rebuilding it, if it gets trashed.

The downside is that there is no No Claims bonus accrued, and they don't account for regular NCB's when calculating your premiums. However, My premiums for a 2.0 TR7 with Norwich Union direct were £380 fully comp, and the V8 came in at £437 on the club scheme.

Cheers,

Yes, but in those circumstances, the car belongs to the insurance Co. Apparently the OP would prefer to keep it. Mike.

Yes. but IMO it would be better to leave your Insurance Co out of it, and claim from the other driver. As long as your claim for fixing the wing is less than the value of the car, there _shouldn't_ be a problem. Mike.

You don't buy back something which already belongs to you. You simply insist you're keeping the vehicle and want a cash settlement for the loss of value caused by the damage. That figure, of course, may cause an argument. ;-)

The car can only belong to the insurance company after you've signed over the title to it - perhaps by accepting their offer in writing.

But. If they "give you the cars value in cash" as T. said, it must already have been agreed, so they own the car. To keep the car, he would have to accept less than the cars value, in order to make the deal attractive to an insurance Co. Mike.

i bought back my car for £100 ligth cosmetic damge so unemecomical.

I dunno. I dealt with the a similar 3rd party claim just a couple of months ago.

The car was a H reg Toyota Corolla 1.3 Auto. I was going to sell it for someone. It was parked outside my house. Someone crashed into and left me their details. I called them. They have me their insurance details. I phoned insurance _their_ insurance company. They asked about quotes. I said the car's worth pennies, please send out inspector. Inspector, er, inspected and then phoned me. We talked on the phone and I got £530 cash. Car was mine to do wtf. Even past it's MOT 2 months later and then my friend took the keys back as it was hassle.

The car was advertised for about £150 btw to sell.

:-)

When a deal is worked out like that, the assessor would take all the factors into consideration when making an offer which included you keeping the car. Sounds like you made a very good deal though. When my wifes 1957 MM convertible was written off, she had to accept a figure £250 lower than it's agreed value in order to keep the car. Mike.

On a similar vein my Mondeo got scraped in November by a 3rd Party .He and his insurance compant admitted liability and repairs were scheduled but meantime someone else pranged it so i delayed the first set of repairs hoping to get both done together ..In the event Admiral ( first accidents insurers) decided just to pay me cash ( albeit without the VAT element ) and I got a cheque for £525 for what was a scratch on the rear wing and a scuff on the front ......I am not likely to get the side resprayed which was what was going to be done ..I'll just fix the scartch/scuff up locally and pocket the rest ... Stuart

I had a similar case, when someone backing out of their drive, managed to rip the rear bumper off my SD1 Vitesse. No panel damage, but it broke the bumper mounting brackets. The female driver didn't want to claim, so gave me the cost of a new bumper. About £125 IIRC. Managed to pick up a s/h one in perfect condition for £25. About half an hour to fit, and the car looked as good as before. I could do with more accidents like that. :-) Mike.

Is that a fairly normal thing you can pretty much insist on?

And presumably you'd have to get some kind of engineers report for the "value" bit?

What I'm wondering is, that if I'm ever in that situation again, I have options: 1. No claim, the car is mine, I do what I want, possibly repair at my expense (in the assumption there's no 3rd party to claim from). 2. Attempt to claim / settle, and possibly buy back (in the event that their only agreed solution is for them to notionally settle for the car, take ownership, and I buy back as salvage). 3. Retain the car (it is mine after all), and attempt to claim for loss of value?

I would have thought at least some of it will come down to what they contractually agree as your insurers, plus whatever is their policy on the matter?