What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - HAP

On 28 February 2022 our car was reversed into while stationary and incurred minor damage which was repaired thru insurance the following month. On Friday we were looking to part ex our car and we discovered it was listed as a CAT N (and this was actually dated prior to the collision). Our insurance company were not helpful as they could not understand why it was written off as the repair costs were about 25% of the value of our car and write offs would normally be 60%+. Needless to say though the part ex offer was ridiculously low at under £6k for a car that cost £22k to buy less than three years ago. Is it possible for a CAT N to be removed and if not, as I suspect to be the case, has anyone heard of this happening before and has any advice on how to deal with it.

Edited by HAP on 26/03/2023 at 14:39

Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - Bromptonaut

What was the car's history before the 28/02 collision?

Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - HAP

Not aware of any accidents before we bought it from a reputable dealer and if it was registered as CAT N after we bought it, it was at least 18 months late. Date of registration was 10 days before collision.

Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - Simon

How long have you owned the car? Maybe it was declared a CAT N before you bought it.

Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - HAP

Not aware this was the case as date of registration of CAT N notice was 10 days before collision so could have been a typo but waiting on explanation from insurance company.

Nissan Leaf - Insurance company listed car as CAT N &repaired it - HAP

Turns out that our car was registered as a CAT N in error by a company (we have had no involvement with) and the wrong information was entered on the data base and totally unrelated to our accident. You would hope that it would be fairly difficult to input incorrect information onto a database the car industry relies on for this sort of information, but apparently not. Also it is a worrying fact that our car was registered as CAT N for over a year and we were oblivious, as was our insurance company when we needed them to repair our car after a not our fault collision. The system seems rather inefficient.

As our insurance company was not actually involved it took a fair bit of investigation on our part to find out how our car ended up on the database as this information is not readily available and it cost us money to find. Luckily we could do it, but not everyone is in that position. And now we have to wait and see how long it takes for this to be removed.

Edited by HAP on 28/03/2023 at 17:47