Friend borrowed my car and had an accident.

i would get advice if that would pass an MOT. It may be that as they are damaged this could make it harder in a accident.

She didn’t “cause” it though did she. She happened to be the person driving when a car crashed into it.

What an awful situation. A lot now will depend on how much the insurance will pay out for the car , how much you need to buy the car back off the insurance then how much the repairs will cost .
At the very least your friend should make sure you're not out of pocket. This should also include her providing you with a car while yours is off the road .

This!

Just an fyi your vehicle isn't road legal if the door doesn't open. The vehicle wouldn't pass it's MOT as all doors are classed as an escape route.

Get on to her insurance and ask they take the car away straight away to be fixed. It will all be down to parts ETA as well.

No.

Tell her she has to pay in full. CF.

Comprehensive doesn't always cover cars lent or hired to you, why didn't you get her added to your insurance? It doesn't normally cost much about £30

Are you sure she was actually insured? Regardless she's a cf and why on earth should you be out of pocket for her crashing your car. The cheeky fuckery of some people is mind-boggling! NO NO No op do not be sharing any of these costs this one is on her to sort out.

Massive CF. Why should you be out of pocket at all when she caused it!

I would still query this with the insurance company. In my case as I was only dealing with the other drivers insurance, as soon as they heard I couldn’t open a back door they demanded I stop driving the car immediately (as it was back passenger door i didn’t even think!) and had a rental out to me as door damage affects road worthiness and then they become liable. Therefore although I had to wait months to have it fixed I was having a lovely time in my new rental car!

You don't have to use the insurer approved garage, you can push to nominate your own but the excess may be higher (this only matters if you have to pay excess).

It really doesn't sound like your friend is pushing for your best interests very much if at all. I know you've said she's lovely but I'd really be taking a long look at the friendship as letting someone suffer after they did you a massive favour is pretty shabby.

You can deal with the problem through your insurance company or hers. Phone them.

Depends on category. Cosmetic write offs are fine to put back on the road. There are different categories according to extent and nature of damage. Some are written off with a specific category that are banned from being repaired and put back on the road. You can google for the different categories.

It's only "uneconomical" for the insurance firm to repair as they have to use new parts, approved bodyshops and are on the hook to provide a hire/courtesy car for the duration until the car is repaired. That can sometimes be several weeks of the bodyshops are busy or they have trouble sourcing parts. At a few hundred pounds per week, the hire/courtesy car costs soon mount up.

For cosmetic only damage, it's usually better to take the market value from the insurer (don't forget to haggle), buy it back from them for scrap value (usually £300 or so), and get a back street grease monkey bodyshop to do the repair using scrapyard parts.

No. The insurance firm will be paying top whack for a high quality repair using new parts and using an approved bodyshop (who charge more). They'll also have to pay for a courtesy/hire car whilst being repaired.

If the OP buys it back, they can use their own chosen (cheaper) bodyshop who will probably use second hand parts (probably from scrapyard) and won't provide a courtesy car. They'll probably have money left over if they haggle/negotiate a proper value from the insurers, i.e. cost of a replacement vehicle of the same age, mileage, condition, etc.

When a moronic neighbour wrote off our car, the bodyshop had quoted £5k for repairs inc courtesy car. The car was worth £2,500. We had it repaired by a "grease monkey" bodyshop on the industrial estate for £1,500 so actually made some money on it, (to compensate for it's lower resale value as a previous write off). That was all cosmetic too, no structural damage.

I said upthread, OP as legal owner and loss payee has the right to engage directly, no need to be nominated as agent for the friend.

So why aren't you accepting a settlement and using the money to buy a new car?

Bear in mind getting spare parts could be a nightmare as they are hard to come by

If you haven't arranged it already, I'd still ask her to nominate you as an agent to act on her behalf. It sounds like you'll get advice from your BIL who's in the trade, but I'd want to negotiate the write-off value myself. Good luck.

A car that has been written off is uneconomical to repair. Cheaper to buy a replacement. So it doesn’t make any sense, really. You will pay more to get it repaired than for a like for like replacement that has never been in an accident and is therefore safer. Is it legal to put a written off car back on the road?

If it's not economically viable for the insurers to repair would the same not be true for you?

That said, if she's offering half to cover repairs on top of the settlement then maybe it's not as cheeky as it first sounds??