Insurance issue, what do I do.

JonRGV250 said:
Let them write it off, then buy it back for approx 30% of what they value it at.
Then repair it yourself.
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I did this many years ago with my "yellow peril" fiat coupe. It took a while and in the end i had to get a replacement before it was sorted but it did mean my car - which had sentimental value so i was happy to "save" it - went back on the road. I also made £500 profit doing it.

however i have since been told insurance companies tend to make it a real pita to do this these days.

last year our pug 308 was written off sight unseen by the insurance. They said for a car which was worth £3000 or so, by the time they factored in hire car costs as well as the paper work etc it was just not worth repairing.

hopefully the car would have ended up somewhere as spares - or actually more sensibly just taking a door from another written off car as it was in decent shape in general.... i hope it wasnt crushed however as it still had a lot of life left in it.
 
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Haze said:
Insurance companies are writing off cars that are only 5 years old, you have got no hope
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surely there is a lot of money to be made somewhere here for the canny buyer with some repair skills....... either for personal use or as a business. I assume all these written off cars go to an auction site somewhere for damaged cars? or do they just go straight to the scrap yard?
 
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bigmike20vt said:
however i have since been told insurance companies tend to make it a real pita to do this these days.
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My Focus ST was written off just before Christmas, and I made it plain from the outset that I wanted to buy it back.
They let me buy it back for 30% of the value and I’m still smoking around in it to this day, just needs a new door and wing (£250).
I’ve done the same with a couple of bikes and it’s never been a problem at all.
Every time I’ve made a decent chunk of change when I’ve sold the vehicles, in fact I fitted a new kitchen with the money from the ST.
 
JonRGV250 said:
They mostly go to Copart and such companies.
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exactly i have had at least 4 people i know have there cars picked up and assesed by copart before being written off. some insurances let copart take care of recovery/assesment and disposal, bit of a racket i feel but hey .
couple of years ago i thought just for a laugh i would see what it took to register with copart for buying.
in the old days i had a account with hales for online salvage, with then you had to jump through the hoops, (trade reference,vat reg, bank account details proving you were trade and headed notepaper, or sample invoice)
with copart i filled all my details in as a guy in the street, and got to the final stage which was please pay 60 pound registration fee. at that i thought nope cant be that easy to get salvage...
2 weeks later they sent me a nice email telling me that they noticed i hadnt completed my registration and if i wanted to they would drop the fee to 30 pounds.... no wonder so many cars are being sold with minor damage, most are just flipping them without repairing..
 
Update....

I went through the retain car / cat N process.
There scrap company valued the car at £3k.. Its close but if I go on autotrader you can't buy my model atm for anything less than £3.5k with higher mileage
Should I accept their valuation or reject it?

All in all they want £900 for scrap value and I'd get £2.1k back..
I've had a quote to fix of under 1k so I'd be in profit from having a crash by 1.1k which is utter madness, they should just fix it..

What do you think my next move should be.. Reject the claim and show them autotrader and that I want more? Or just take it and run?
 
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i would try and get more..... ultimately i failed when i tried but if you dont ask you dont get.

i also got an extra £350 from them for not accepting a courtesy car.

sounds like you will do ok if you buy the car back... also if they up the value of the car it will up the value of the buyback as well so possibly swings and roundabouts there.

part of them fixing it would include giving you a courtesy car and the paperwork getting it done... hence its cheaper for you to sort than them, which is why its viable for you
 
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Rejected and showed in Autotrader that you cannot buy a car like mine for the price they offered, but they phoned and said they don't use autotrader and it's all down to some buyers guide that I'm not allowed to see or check through.. What a suprise.

Took the valuation as I'll still be in profit... Who would have thought after having a minor ding I'd have a grand in the bank. :rolleyes:

Probably keep it all anyway to offset the insurance premiums, so no money made, just lazy ***** who over charge and didn't want to fix my car..

Almost tempted to go 3rd party in future.
 
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