insurance write off??

[5lab]

as some of you may know, my car was written off by a truck on the wrong side of the road a while ago (2 months now probably).. anyways, insurance is taking forever to go thru but i was told today that under common law you are allowed to 'force' the other insurance company to repair your car, reguardless of how uneconomical it is to do so. is this correct? can i really force this guys insurance to do ~£2k of work (my estimate) to a ~£500 car? if so, should i do it just to piss them off? after all, he shouldnt have been on the wrong side of the road..

[Rave]

TBH they are likely to offer you more than the car is worth anyway. Why would you want an expensively fixed £500 car when you could take the cash and buy something better?

At the end of the day it's not the truck driver you'r getting revenge on, it's the insurance company, who will pass the cost along to all their members in the form of increased premiums. There's sod all point getting them to waste money just for the hell of it.

[Shad]

Pissing people off gets you nowhere in life mate.

[5lab]

aye i know. i'm just thinking that if i push for a repair i might be able to get more for the money when i ask for it.. i mean if the repair would cost them £2k and i'm pushing for that, then they might jump at the chance to give me £1k for the car

[Butuz]

It depends what kind of write of it is.

Category D means that the car is safe to be repaired, so you can get it back and get it fixed yourself.

Category C means that its had a serious structural accident and the insurance company wont let it go back on the road, but you can strip it of any good parts yourself before it goes to the carpark in the sky.

Category B means the damage was so serious that the insurance company wont let you touch it and it can only be stripped down by an official / registered trade breaker.

Category A just goes straight to the crusher.

You cant make them pay out for anything, your in no position to do any pushing as they hold all of the aces. They expect you to barter the price they offer you, if the cost of repairs comes to around 75% or more of the cars falue then the insurance company can write it off and give you what they offer with no argument from you.

Butuz

[Fox]

Originally Posted by Butuz

You cant make them pay out for anything, your in no position to do any pushing as they hold all of the aces. They expect you to barter the price they offer you, if the cost of repairs comes to around 75% or more of the cars falue then the insurance company can write it off and give you what they offer with no argument from you.

This is not strictly true - whilst you cannot insist it is repaired you can certainly argue the toss in terms of the settlement figure they give you, especially if its a third parties insurer and not your fault. They'll always offer low becuase most people just accept it.

A common trick is to offer you trade price - to which you politely remind them you don't buy cars trade and you want retail price so you can buy another car the same.

[buzz_lips]

Originally Posted by 5lab

as some of you may know, my car was written off by a truck on the wrong side of the road a while ago (2 months now probably).. anyways, insurance is taking forever to go thru but i was told today that under common law you are allowed to 'force' the other insurance company to repair your car, reguardless of how uneconomical it is to do so. is this correct? can i really force this guys insurance to do ~£2k of work (my estimate) to a ~£500 car? if so, should i do it just to piss them off? after all, he shouldnt have been on the wrong side of the road..

Can I ask who told you this? I work as an Insurance Underwriter although I don't do motor so I can really say too much. (I write Sports/Personal Acc and Travel )
I'd be extremely surprised if you could do this.
One of the basic rules of Insurance is Indemnity - i forget if this applies to motor but it's basically the Principal of putting the Insured Person into the same financial position as they were before the Insured event (your accident) took place. Therefore if your car is worth only £500 there is no way on Earth you'll get an Insurance company to agree to do 2k's worth of work. Therefore they'll write off your motor and give you the cash. Most Motor insurers will use various guides to establish the worth of your vehicle like Glasses Guide.

I know a few Motor claims guys though so i'll ask for you but i'm 110% sure they'll laugh!

[Rave]

I don't know the exact legal position, but it seems reasonable to me that if you can easily procure a replacement item (in this case a car) for £500 which is as good as the item that has been written off, then £500 would be the settlement which a court would award. Unless there was something special about your Volvo (like you'd spent £1000 having it stripped back to bare bodywork, welded, sealed, and repainted), then they're only obliged to give you enough money to buy one that's in equal or better condition.