Been looking at some accident damaged tin-tops and honestly cannot believe some of the Cat-D's out there.

Many are just panel damage, but have been categorised.... WTF is that all about???

One in particular has caught my eye - panel damage plus headlights and radiator. Cost to repair (with genuine new parts)... £4k. The insurance company paid out £27K to the old owner!!!!!!

I now know why insurance costs keep rising!

I just don't get it... surely if I prang my car and it's my fault and it can be professionally fixed, then I just take my medicine, hand over my excess and get it fixed.

If it's someone else's fault, then they hand over their excess and get it fixed.

These 'new car' insurance schemes are going to be the undoing of insurance co's... those of us paying more every year to cover this nonsense should make a stand!

Hi Scootz

If I was the old owner of the car you mention I would have tried to buy-it-back from the insurance company! £27k payout, £4k to fix, there is a nice profit there!

[Edited on 30/1/09 by carpmart]

Especially when you consider the car is being sold for £11k

Main dealer price is indeed about the £27k mark, so spending £15k to buy the car, fix it and have it back on the road makes sense.

Sure - it's a Cat-D, so won't be without it's problems to move on, but if you plan on keeping it long-term, then it's a win-win situation!

I remember when all my cars had ‘battle damage’, gives them character

It’s also good for saying “STAY THE FECK AWAY FROM ME!”

I have a book on repairing write-offs, some of the damage repairs are spectacular and the only car they say is beyond repair is one that’s been literally wrapped round a tree

My 5K MR2 turbo had some nice chap reverse out infront of it. I was sure it would be a write off, but either because I insisted on it, or because he was liable and his insurance is paying for it, its getting the front rebuilt. Bumpers, wings, bonnet, pop up lights, air con and coolant rads, plus all the other inner panel stuff and then a respray. Its costing a fair penny to fix it.

Maybe it depends of if you write your own car off, or someone else does it?

Don't forget the insurance company also have to consider the cost of car hire when a car is being repaired. If parts are unavailable or on back order with no delivery date then they may write off a good car to save themselves from car hire charges and to put the claim to bed rather than have it dragging on.

There's seems to have been a complete change to the way insurance companies deal with write offs recently. My Son smashed his car in September and the insurance company wrote it off and eventually made a payment of £2500. We went to the local Vauxhall dealer to where the car was recovered to so we could get some of the personal belongings out of the boot. The car didn't look too bad (bumper, wing , headlight and possibly a radiator) and looked like not too much effort to put right. I spoke to the guy at the body shop about buying it back and repairing it but he reckoned that most of the insurance companies have an arrangement with a number of salvage firms and wont deal with the public anymore. The guys in the body shop used to do the same thing to earn extra cash but even they aren't allowed to buy write offs from the insurance companies anymore. I guess it is to stop ringing and to keep unsafe motors off the road but as it was our insurance company refused flat to let us buy back the car for repair and made a payout for the loss.

I was actually amazed our old Alfa didn't get written off It rolled off down the hill after the Mrs parked it, needed basically one whole side replacing/painting. I was actually quite pleased at the time, was trying to sell it anyway and it was only ever going to get £2000 max. I hate selling cars, so having it written off would have been a result. I was less than pleased when they said they were giving it back. Even the insurance company didn't want the thing

The whole system is on the point of collapse at the moment - totally screwed up.

The biggest insurer in the country is paying its own repairers £900 for every repair - whatever the damage, it seems it is the cheapest option for them. So the estimators are doing their utmost to total all jobs above that figure, so some really mildly damaged vehicles are getting the bullet.

The economics for the other insurers are mounting up as well. Most third party claims are being dealt with by the 'claims direct' brigade, so hire cars are being supplied at £200+ per day. This means that a car worth £10k has an accident, causing a 15 day off the road repair including weekends, thats 10 working days so you can deduct £3k from any repair figure, then there is the residual value of the salvage. Something easy to repair will auction off at about 70% of a pre-accident value, so effectively you can write off a 2 year old Focus for a damaged wiper blade!

We will be going the Japanese route soon, anything damaged just get scrapped full stop (or gets exported to the UK!)