Brother had a crash - Insurance declared it a write off

shauncr91

shauncr91

shauncr91

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Ok so my brother crashed his Laguna about a week back, causing damage to the drivers door and front right wing.

The insurance company has said that their own damage evalutator has quoted it at £3k to fix the car, however my brother has had a quote given to himself from a local garage for £950.
When he phoned the insurer today, they said that this is irrelevent as they have already declared it a write off, and they want to claim posession of the vehicle.

The company who quoted £950 however, have said that it is illegal for them to deny the car owner the ability to collect their own quotes, is this true? And if so, what is the best thing for him to do now ?

Thanks :)
 
I am not sure of the legalaties but your brother should find out how much of a pay out the insurers would give him and also how much, if possible, he can buy how car back from them at?

I am pretty certain the insurers cannot force you to hand ownership of the vehicle to them though.
 
shauncr91 said:
Ok so my brother crashed his Laguna about a week back, causing damage to the drivers door and front right wing.

The insurance company has said that their own damage evalutator has quoted it at £3k to fix the car, however my brother has had a quote given to himself from a local garage for £950.
When he phoned the insurer today, they said that this is irrelevent as they have already declared it a write off, and they want to claim posession of the vehicle.

The company who quoted £950 however, have said that it is illegal for them to deny the car owner the ability to collect their own quotes, is this true? And if so, what is the best thing for him to do now ?

Thanks :)
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His insurance company are talking utter rubbish.

The car is his, till he says otherwise.

They cannot claim ownership till he sends them the V5. Don't send them the V5.

All he needs to know is what category write of their engineer says it is. If it is C or D then just repair it.

If it is B, he will need to get it MOT'd again.

A, it has to be scrapped.

The engineer will have placed a valuation and a salvage valuation on the car.

If he wants to keep it, the salvage value will be deducted from the true value, as the car, in it's smashed up state, is still worth something.

Request the engineers report and do nothing till you get it.

Sounds fishy to me as insurers do not normally like taking vehicles unless they can make some money.

Which insurer is it? I assume one of the smaller ones.
 
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The above is a little inaccurate:
Cat. B also has to be scrapped but (some) parts are salvageable.
Cat. A must be scrapped in entirety.
 
Call the insurance company, ask for the engineers report and which category writeoff it has been declared as. Also ask for the cars valuation and scrap value.
My car was written off. I brought the car back off the insurance company and had it repaired privately.
 
You have a right to chose where the car is repaired provided it is 'reasonable'.

At 3 times less than the quote the insurer got no court would settle against you.

Some insurers do not let you buy back - it is imperative you do not allow yourself to be screwed over by letting them take ownership until you know if you can buy back. Personally I'd push for repair from the cheaper garage if thats what you want.
 
Thanks for the posts everyone, lots of good advice :)

[TW]Fox;15798215 said:
You have a right to chose where the car is repaired provided it is 'reasonable'.

At 3 times less than the quote the insurer got no court would settle against you.

Some insurers do not let you buy back - it is imperative you do not allow yourself to be screwed over by letting them take ownership until you know if you can buy back. Personally I'd push for repair from the cheaper garage if thats what you want.
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Yep, they refuse the ability to buy back a car from them (I'm not sure on his insurer but it's one of those small ones nobody's heard of).

The company has said that because it's already been declared by them as a write off they reckon that's irreversable.

He'll be ringing the citizens advice/trading standards tomorrow to take it further, since he already had an argument with the insurer on the phone this afternoon about their actions.
 
Hi, thanks all for your very helpful replies :thumbup: I am simon, the driver referred by the original poster. I have now my own account on here, though i had to wait a while for activation which is why i got my brother to make the post :)

So yeah, the people i am insured with is '1st central'. Yeah, me neither (you did say 'never heard of them', right? :confused:)

So yeah, basically as already been said, i went and got a quote off some local respray company who are based in sheds in middle of a muddy field in middle of nowhere and do things proper on cheap, but they been there ages and are actually quite good and surely if im ready to accept work done to such a standard as these people do things then that should be my rightly given choice, right?

So anyway, what with been REALLY busy with work and not getting much time off during the week lately, it took me about a week to get this quote off them, then i rang insurance company at first opportunity (around 7-8 days after accident). I did report the accident to the insurance company immediately after the accident.

Basically they say 'yes you are entitled to your own independent repairer'. Then in the same sentence they say 'we have however already put the car through the write off process'. Their next sentence was 'because it is now being declared a write off and you didnt get to us before we did this, its too late to offer a pay out for repairs we will not honor this, and you MUST hand over the car for the write off value of the vehicle in order for the write off payment to be honored!'. See, thing is, many of you are probably thinking why not just accept the payout and get something else? Well a few reasons really...

1) They STILL havent told me yet how much im going to get, and are refusing point blank at giving me any information on this (you just know there gonna rip me off, right?)
2) And heres the biggest reason, about 5 months ago, the bearings went inside the gearbox. This caused metal shards to rip to shreds the entire workings of the gearbox itself, plus clutch was on its way. Therefore i spent £1300 on new gearbox, clutch and flywheels!. Now, this may seem a lot to spend on a 52 plate laguna diesel, but you see i thought this was money well spent since i have no intention on selling the car any time soon and wanted the car to be good for me for many years to come and there is no other car i want anyway, this ones got the lot! (good fuel consumption, powerful, aircon, big and spacious ect ect).

So yeah as you can imagine, theres about as much chance that im going to be willing to part with this vehicle as there is with the sun exploding within our lifetime :p. Even if they do give me hard time, ill get it repaired one way or another. Theres just has to be a scrap yard somewhere with a silver laguna where i can take off the door, wing and mirror; if i can do that then the repair cost should be minimal as i can ask these people to just regig the door sill and swap the parts over, no moulding or spraying involved at all.

Thats not point though really, i want insurance to pay for this to be repaired because thats what i bloody well pay them for, and at way less than half the car value (even at rock bottom value at that) then they have no right to force it a scrap in any case!

damn im absolutely fuming over this :mad: First thing tomorrow morning im on phone to trading standards. Then ill be off to citizens advice, get all the advice i can get, then ill be speaking to 1st central and demanding to talk to a manager and ill tell them my rights and what they will and will-not do and if they start playing hard ball with me then screw it ill go get a no win no fee solicitor on the case, and get car repaired myself :rolleyes:
 
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Well heres an update for you all. Got on phone to trading standards this morning, and was told to escalate the matter to the general management which i was able to find the number for in my large T&Ss document, told them the story and that i was not happy, they did some enquire and phoned back within 10 minutes saying it sounds like there been some crossed wires, asked me to email the cheaper quote through which i did while on phone and she had a quick look and told me that she would get it dealt with and either phone back or email once they have authorised it.

Hopefully things will move more smoothly from now on, will keep u all posted :)
 
Personally I would go down the option of letting the insurance company writeoff the car then buy the car off them as scrap. The car most likely will be writeoff as a cat D writeoff if not then it will be a cat C. With a cat D writeoff all you need to do is get the car repaired then MOT-ed and you are back on the road. If it is a cat C writeoff you need need to get it repaired, MOT-ed then have a VIC check done at VOSA center which costs £41.00.
Find out what the insurance company values your car at prior to the accident and scrap value of your car (the amount they will let you buy the car back from them.. it is usual 20% to 40 %of the value of the car).
Then add on the repair and MOT costs and see if you will make a profit.
 
wijcc said:
Personally I would go down the option of letting the insurance company writeoff the car then buy the car off them as scrap. The car most likely will be writeoff as a cat D writeoff if not then it will be a cat C. With a cat D writeoff all you need to do is get the car repaired then MOT-ed and you are back on the road. If it is a cat C writeoff you need need to get it repaired, MOT-ed then have a VIC check done at VOSA center which costs £41.00.
Find out what the insurance company values your car at prior to the accident and scrap value of your car (the amount they will let you buy the car back from them.. it is usual 20% to 40 %of the value of the car).
Then add on the repair and MOT costs and see if you will make a profit.
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That would seem like the best choice and most obvious route, but like i say this insurance company will NOT let me do that! Even the general manager i spoke to this morning re-iterated that to me that once i accept a total loss settlement then the car is theirs and they do NOT sell back.

Sucks really :( Hate this insurance company
 
shauncr91 said:
Thanks for the posts everyone, lots of good advice :)



Yep, they refuse the ability to buy back a car from them (I'm not sure on his insurer but it's one of those small ones nobody's heard of).
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wijcc said:
sTUFF
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Unfortunately he cannot buy the car back due to his insurance company, good to hear you are making progress with this, bad enough listening to people on the internet spout rubbish about legal/insurance stuff let alone people working for these companies!
 
that s**ks.. funnily my insurer admiral also stated that on their website and on the letter they sent me to inform me that my car was a write-off that i could not buy the car off them. But when i asked the guy who phoned to give me the offer for the car/the payout amount. I asked if i could buy the car back off them. And he said yes, giving me the scrap value which is the amount the salvage company offered them for the car (£650)
 
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