Advice Wanted - car insurance

[ladyhawke63]

Bit of a long story but here goes. On 5th september, my car was damaged in a silly accident which was not my fault. Telephoned my insurance company to report the accident and started a claim against the other party. As my car is 14 years old was quite prepared to have it "written off". The engineer came to assess the damage and last Thursday I received a letter with an acceptable offer, but have not received the cheque yet). My car is now "total loss Category C", but with the money from the insurance I can repair it and keep it on the road, (as cannot afford a newer car). I understand that it will be flagged VIC at the DVLA. But what is confusing me is 1 - if I am keeping the car do I have to have pay the £36.00 to have the Vehicle Identity Check, and 2. at what point do I have to inform my insurance company, and do I inform my broker or the underwriter. All the information on the internet does seem to be confusing.

I know that geocachers have a wide knowledge so can some one please help this confused driver, as I only want to do the right thing and be on the road driving legally.

Thanks

[martybartfast]

I was always under the impression that if the insurance co writes off the car and pays you then the wreck effectively becomes their property, so if you want to put it back on the road you had to buy it back off them.

I have no personal experience of this so I may be talking complete rubbish.

[Bear and Ragged]

Same as Marty says.
So there must be some truth in it!

Ask how much they will sell it to you for.
They may let you keep the car, and give you a reduced payment...

Just remember, that if you sell it at a later date it's most likely to show up as a write off, which may cause a few problems.
Make sure you keep all the paperwork associated with getting it road-worthy and road-legal again.

[nobbynobbs]

It always was that if your own company write it off then they buy the car, if it's the third party insurance company then they remove the value of the scrap from the valuation and pay you that leaving you to dispose of the car. Or that's what it was.

Write off just means that it's cheaper for them to pay you the value minus the scrap than to repair. It has been a few years since I worked in the evil industry

Easiest solution is to call your company and tell them that's what's happened and ask them what it is they will want to happen. Could be as simple as letting them know when it's back on the road.

[keehotee]

Probably not going to help much, but I had the same thing happen to me a few years ago.

I had a Honda CRX, and a taxi failed to stop and went into the back of me. Not too hard - but just hard enough to crease the back of the bootlid and crack the perspex CRX panel.

My insurance company gave me a courtesy car for a month until they decided it was a write off.
They'd written it off because (apparently) they would have had to get Honda to remanufacture the perspex panel.

I took the money, used a tiny proportion of it to buy back the car (about £25 IIRC), spent another £2 on a tube of araldite to repair the panel, and pushed out the crease (which was hidden behind the screen anyway) by hand.
It lasted me another couple of years until I sold it to buy a VW camper (but that's an altogether different (and far more expensive) story.....

[Anderson]

this is embarrassing fr me as well whenever i got an accident and insurance companies never took any step to save my repair expanses.