Potentially Appealing a write off

[Orionaut]

A lady friend of mine was rear ended by a 4x4 at a roundabout on friday PM

(The old He thought she had gone but she hadn't thing)

There is no apparent damage to the 4x4 but her car has a broken rear fog light, a crack in the lower part of the plastic bumper (Looks repairable if there is no underlying damage) and a small dent in the rear wing just above the OS bumper margin.

The damage is minor and I am sure a decent body shop could fix it without having to replace the wing.

(Indeed, many people would just fix the light and carry on using it)

Unfortunately the vehicle is a 51 plate Corsa 1.2. and is therefore "Worth" nothing!

Despite its age, this vehicle is in pristine condition, has a full service history and is relatively low mileage (80,000) But for this issue the car would easily be good for another 10 years and she would have been happy to keep it and in deed was hoping to do so.

She is concerned that the car may be written off. I have never been in this position so do not know what the deal is under these circumstances.

(EG Can the other parties "Write Off" her car? Can such a decision be realistically appealed? As I said It would be a sin to scrap this particular vehicle because of a minor dent)

Any assistance gratefully received.

 

[Orionaut]

Thank you for your quick and helpful replies.

I have passed on the good advise and told her to stand her ground should the need arise. She now feels much better about the situation. She was quite distressed (She is on a minimum wage part time job and not in a position to get a new car at present and was quite worried about it)

I suspect that the best option might well be the "settlement in lieu of repair". There is a very local body-shop that specialises in economic repairs of this nature (Though I wouldn't tell the insurance company that)

 

[Orionaut]

Update!

Having never had to get involved in insurance claims in the last 20 years, this has been a real eye opener for me!

(And not at all in a good sense! )

After taking various stuff into consideration, I advised my friend to withdraw from the claim process and just suck up the repair costs (Local body shop quoted £300 Inc VAT which I feel is entirely reasonable)

Her "Local insurance Broker" had, apparently, passed her case onto an "Accident management company". The main motivation for the AMC seems to have been to get her off the road (By taking her car away for "Assessment" by a third party salvage/auction company) and then bully her into accepting a "Courtesy car" (and presumably an eventually pitiful "write off " payment).

Actually repairing the car seems to be of no consequence.

There is no money to be made out of that!