The write-offs in the wall

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The write-offs in the wall

I wrote to you last year whilst we were deliberating as to what to do following an accident that resulted in our car being declared a total loss by the insurer.

Well, this is how it played out: The car, a Nissan X Trail hit a section of safety fence. The car suffered damage to the nearside front including a crumpled bonnet etc. Immediately after we called the insurer, when looking at the age of the car (2003/53), they indicated it would almost certainly be a total loss. At that point, we advised the insurer that we would obtain our own independent valuation for the car (which we did through Glass's guide for £3) and that, in the event it was declared a total loss, we wanted to be made immediately aware of the category.

The car was collected and taken to the insurer's fairly local 'Approved Repairer’. They took two days to assess the damage, which they calculated to be £6,500. They also warned that this was optimistic, as once they got to this figure they stopped counting. We contacted a local garage, J&A Coachworks in Dunbar, and asked if this kind of repair was within their capabilities.

They replied that yes, they would take the work on. Jim of J&A counselled that as 99% of the damage was panel or bonnet, new parts were not necessary. We discussed online breakers yards and we agreed to source the parts and pay for them. We paid a local guy £70 to move the car from the Approved Insurer to J&A.

All the parts ordered online arrived on time and all were as required. Jim had quoted £1,500 to do the work; the parts came to £840, plus the £70 to move the car.

We got £2,000 from the insurer after deduction of excess. So, for £500 we got back the car we knew and trusted. A lot less than it would have cost to buy a new one, which I think a good result.

I cannot praise J&A Coachworks of Dunbar highly enough, for doing the work on time and within budget, for the quality of his work or the services of online breakers yards whose service was also first class. The moral of the story is, don't trust 'Approved insurers' and be prepared to do a bit of work yourself. It will save significant sums of money. The Nissan X Trail is still going strong at 142,000 miles, of which we have done 130,000.

Asked on 29 August 2011 by DM, via email

Answered by Honest John

Good story, and fairly typical of the way the 'write off’ system works. Your car would have been written off as a 'Cat C', you would have received a fairly poor 'market value' payoff, and the car would have been sold for salvage. Then exactly what you did would have been done.

The car would have been repaired and re-sold. But the main reason why repairable cars are written off is not the cost of the repair by an approved repair. It is the cost of the credit hire car you might have been put in for the duration of the repair. Even if the insurer had managed to repair the car for the same cost as you paid, the credit hire of an equivalent car for the period of the repair could have been £5,000 or more. (For one reader the credit hire cost was £70,000.) So that's why insurers write cars off very promptly and why an industry of vultures waits on the sideline ready to pounce on the remains.

Tags: insurance write offs