A few days ago, someone drove into our parked Volvo and smashed the headlight and scratched the side panel. (They left a note with their insurance details, hurrah for them.)
Based on a photo, our insurers (John Lewis) are saying the car is a "write off", as it will cost more than the total value of the car to fix. They think the car is now worth £3800, so I'm not sure where they're getting their repair costs from!
The local garage has quoted me £450 to replace the headlight, but John Lewis say even if we pay this ourselves, the car will still be recorded as a cat N write-off, and will cost us more to insure in future.
Do I have any options other than accepting John Lewis's assessment, and scrapping the car? It seems really odd that they want to give us £3800 rather than paying (surely) much less to fix the headlight.
It also seems sad to scrap a car that's essentially fine - not to mention the environmental impact. 😢