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Original poster

Car insurance- car written off, even though it's fine??

5 replies

chipswitheveryting · 30/04/2023 05:53

Hi

So I had my car stolen, it turned up a couple of weeks later, had 2 minor scratches on the bodywork and that is it. Police say car is fine, drives fine, looks fine (except scratches). Insurance company said it was a write off, sent me a list of everything that needs replaced, it's completely fabricated, they are recommending pretty much all the bodywork is fully replaced.

They wrote my car off, category N, and gave me £11k, then I asked to buy the car back, which I bought for £3,300. I've got it back, paid to have marks fixed. And it's fine and cost less than £1k to fix ???

I don't understand why an insurance company would rather lose £7,700 (£11k Minus £3.3k) than pay less than £1k to repair and then return to me.

Does anyone know why they would do this? It's seems like an insane business decision, what am I missing? Is there something strange happening in the car insurance world?

OP posts:
PollyPeptide · 30/04/2023 06:03

The same thing happened with my bil but he wouldn't accept the write off. He got the insurance company to give him a list of acceptable auto body workers and got them to write out the quote. He then contacted the insurers and they eventually agreed to pay it.

His situation was different from yours. He wouldn't have got enough to buy a decent replacement so he really needed to get it done on insurance. The insurers told him it was just easier for them to pay out.

Original poster
chipswitheveryting · 30/04/2023 06:06

It just doesn't make sense, surely it insurers were less lazy, they would make more profit. I don't get it at all.

OP posts:
CoozudBoyuPuak · 30/04/2023 06:20

It's because the standard that the car is supposed to be returned to is "showroom perfect" for a car of that age that has never been in an accident. "Fine" isn't an acceptable standard.

To take an example - your stolen car was clearly used as a joy-ride and driven badly. During that time the brakes and gear system will have taken a beating and some damage will have been done.

If those damaged systems are deemed "fine" and you are later in an accident that causes a death, the accident investigators could trace the cause of the accident to a catastrophic failure in the brake system that was previously deemed "fine" - and whoever decided it was "fine" is ultimately the person who caused that later accident.

The risk of an incident like that, vs the cost and expertise required to establish how much damage has been done, vs the cost of simply replacing the whole brakes system with factory-brand-new makes it more economical to do any repair or replacement however minor to be on the safe side, for every bit of damage done.

When you get insurance in the future you will need to declare whether the car has previously been an insurance write-off, and some write-offs are effectively uninsurable.

PollyPeptide · 30/04/2023 06:26

Ah, @CoozudBoyuPuak, that explains why my bil could get his van repaired. It was just damaged bodywork. But the initial, inept! photos he sent in made it look like the wheelarch was buckled. I guess he managed to prove it wasnt, and so they gave the repair the go ahead.
Thanks for explaining.

Original poster
chipswitheveryting · 30/04/2023 11:12

CoozudBoyuPuak · 30/04/2023 06:20

It's because the standard that the car is supposed to be returned to is "showroom perfect" for a car of that age that has never been in an accident. "Fine" isn't an acceptable standard.

To take an example - your stolen car was clearly used as a joy-ride and driven badly. During that time the brakes and gear system will have taken a beating and some damage will have been done.

If those damaged systems are deemed "fine" and you are later in an accident that causes a death, the accident investigators could trace the cause of the accident to a catastrophic failure in the brake system that was previously deemed "fine" - and whoever decided it was "fine" is ultimately the person who caused that later accident.

The risk of an incident like that, vs the cost and expertise required to establish how much damage has been done, vs the cost of simply replacing the whole brakes system with factory-brand-new makes it more economical to do any repair or replacement however minor to be on the safe side, for every bit of damage done.

When you get insurance in the future you will need to declare whether the car has previously been an insurance write-off, and some write-offs are effectively uninsurable.

Thanks, this makes sense to me now

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