To think the insurance company has been dodgy

[mycarcrashlife]

To be fair, it might be the company they use to scrap the car which is dodgy, I’m not sure.

Last year I wrote off my 9 year old car in an accident (slow speed, no injuries). The car only had 30k miles on the clock at this point and I’d just had a new exhaust and mot the month before. It passed with no advisories.

So I was given cash for the car and the insurer arranged to take it away with the cost of this coming off the settlement. A year later, I drove by it the other day. It is still quite bashed but was on the road.

I looked it up, it’s taxed and insured but no MOT was done before it was put back on the road. 11 months later it failed (not surprisingly) due to damage from the accident. This was rectified and it then passed.

Is this allowed? I know what happens to the car after the settlement is up to them, but is it not illegal and unsafe to put it back on the road without an mot?

(I name changed becausr I've been moaning about this to anyone who'll listen!)

It's probably gone to auction and whoever has bought it has then put it back on the road. Do you know what category of write off it was?

No, I can't remember. But I thought they had to re-mot regardless?

This suggests it's not for Cat D www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/what-is-a-category-d-car-insurance-write-off/

Ah, although on this occasion they have neglected to actually fix the damage before putting it back on the road.

I don't think there is actually any obligation to repair Cat D (now cat N I think although that change might have happened after your accident) at all - because it can just be cosmetic.

Obviously it's subsequently failed the MOT which could suggest it wasn't roadworthy but it looks like the existing MOT isn't invalidated by Cat D/N.

cars get written off for economical reasons- will the repair cost more than the value?

mot, new exhaust are neither here nor there. insurance companies sell/ auction off their crashed cars all the time

When an insurance company repairs a car it has to do it to a high standard (way above roadworthiness) and use certain grades of parts. Such a repair costs more than getting second hand parts from a scrappy and fixing it yourself. So most cars are written off by insurers for purely economic reasons.

You have the option to buy back the scrap and do your own repairs. Or take the full settlement for the car and buy something else. With the second option the insurance company has bought your car and can do what it likes with it. An insurer that didn’t sell on repairable cars would soon go bust.

As an aside, do you really need a car if you’re averaging less than 3.5k a year in one?

I understand they can do what they like with it, my question was relating to them not re-moting it. I mentioned the mot etc to demonstrate it had been in good condition before being written off. I can’t remember what category of wrote- off it was, I was just surprised to see it on the road when the advice I was given was I needed to re mot it if I bought it back from the insurer. The fact it failed it’s next mot showed it wasn’t fit to drive for the preceding year given the number of issues with it.

Yes, I do. I have mobility issues which make it difficult for me to rely on public transport, particularly where I live. I need to travel around various sites for work. Not that it’s even remotely relevant to the thread.

If you didn't buy it; the car can either be auctioned or scrapped. Generally they're auctioned first as the insurer may get some money for it even if it has to be auctioned "for parts".

If the person who bought it then drove it without an MOT; the insurer can't do anything about that - its down to the new owner. It's highly likely that the new owner just didn't bother.

good to know, they never told me what category of write off it was (I’ve read back) but at the time I assumed it was C.

I’m a bit horrified anyone has continued driving it because it looked pretty bashed up, even now it has passed an mot!

All the letters talked about scrapping so I assumed that was what they’d do with it. I hope whoever bought it was aware of its history.