Just wondered as i'm being told different things from different people....
But say for example a car has taken a bit of damage, insurance chappy comes out & as far as their concerned it's a write off (is it usually if it's more than 2/3rds vaue to repair?) what is the story with taking car as part payment & if this is done does the car still get registered or whatever as a write off, on future HPi's etc? Are there any ways around this or any general advice/cunning plans?
Cheers
Si

 

Your right everything you say mate.

Guys at insurance will look at the car and work out the market value for it

If the report from the garage is more than 2/3, they will pay the market value to you (you can haggle a bit) and then take the car.

You can buy the car back but clear this with the insurance before they pick it up.

Krade did this. he wrote off his car. market value was about 6.5-7k i think, but damage was around 5k upwards. Tescos gave him the market value, and then he bought the car back cheaply, had about 4k in his pocket to put the car back to normal which he did.

It should be recorded as well. The insurance normally take your log book and record it as it was a write off. Krade was lucky, they never took his log book and its not recorded as a write off. lol!

 

Cheers, so it only gets recorded as a write off if they actually take your V5?
Si

 

not always

 

so er is there any set of concrete info, other than that great stuff i already knew lol, on this subject?
So would you have to buy car back off them once they pay full amount or can you take it as part of payment as such...
Si

 

When I bought mine back they basicly said a total value of 7k, then they took out the cost of the car for me to buy it back 2.2k and they took my excess out aswell. A few days later a cheque arrived for the remaing 4.6k which I stuck in my bank.

Pretty painless except for the haggling with the engineer over the value of the car.
One thing thats just occured to me is that the car was taken to a garage of My Choice not the insurers, don't know if this will make a differnece to the situation or not.

I actually rang the DVLA to report my car as a write off when I got it back from the bodyshop Prior to reinsuring it.

The long and the short of it was that she said to me

"if the insurance company didnt change the V5 and don't inform the DVLA its a write off, then its not in their system or HPI or the Police databases as a write off.

OK so can you update the records to inform them all? I asked

Sorry thats down to the insurance company you as the owner can't do it. If I was you I'd forget about it."

It's only through an oversite on Tescos part that they never asked me for the V5, still it was nice compensation for them losing all my original immobliser and alarm certificates when I 1st insured with them

 

what is the story with having to reinsure it then, if it written off effectively the current policy is dead, but if they repair it then you still have the policy in tact for the rest of the year?
Si

 

Not too sure on that one, I think the insurance is stopped when they pay out to you. My insurance ran out whilst the car was off the road and I just reinsured with L+V a few months later.

 

what's the story if you change your mind & decide you dont want to make a claim, ie it's more hassle than it's worth & it'd be easier sorting it yerself can you change yer mind like that once it's been assessed &/or you've put claim form in?
Si