Car Written Off - Insurance queries

ct_roy

Hi all,

Apologies for the long post - it's complicated - if anyone does make it to the end I'd appreciate any advice - thanks in advance!

I'm hoping that someone here has experience dealing with insurance companies after accidents as a good friend of mine is finding it VERY difficult to deal with their insurer at the moment about what to do. In a nutshell the insurance company are effectively forcing them into making a claim which I thought was very odd. Not that my friend doesn't want to make a claim - just that it appears they don't have a choice!

On one hand making a claim will obviously cover the cost of a replacement car (I assume a claim would be for the current market value or is it on the value of the car as specified in the policy - which is probably higher???)

On the other hand making a claim will obviously remove the no claims bonus which might cost more in the long run.

It's amazing the lack of info anywhere on this stuff.

My friend wrote their car off in an accident last week. It was a class C write off (not that I know what that means but I think it means it technically can be repaired but is uneconomical to do so)

Anyway, the car was taken from the scene by a tow truck my insurer uses organised by the guards and brought to a recovery and repair centre. The tow truck driver actually informed him it had to bring the car to the preferred repair centre (my friend had actually asked them to bring it to a different garage but they refused)

An engineer came to the repair centre and declared the car a write off the next day. The car is still in the repair centre and has been there for over a week.

They are obviously going through the motions with the insurance company to evaluate if they should make a claim or not. The problem now is that the repair centre are putting major pressure on the car owner to accept a salvage deal on the car which would mean the car would be scrapped (i.e. they buy it of the owner and do what they please with it). The amount on offer is 20% of the current market value of the car. The bill for the car being in the repair centre for the week is also approx. 600 quid which if a claim is not submitted must be paid by the owner.

This in effect would force the owner into having no choice but to make a claim and lose their no claims bonus.

The insurance company are also dragging their heels on this and giving mixed messages (i.e. one person says don't mind salvage company putting pressure on, another says you MUST salvage today asap! etc.) They then refuse to send emails to confirm what to do re: salvage company.

It just all smells a bit fishy to me - insurance company failing to put stuff in writing on one hand and major pressure from their preffered repair centre on the other - is there risk here? - but as I've no previous experience with anything like this (touch wood) I said I'd ask you good folks what your opinion on all this is?


Thanks one and all!

R.O.R

I'd say the insurance company want to get it sorted sooner rather than later as the storage costs in the accident centre will be clocking up by the day.

Seems the choices are to accept the salvage offer, or your friend can move the car out of there, pay the towing charge, the storage charge and the assesor charge, and then figure out what to do. Depending on the car, the 3 charges might come to more than the salvage value.

ct_roy

cheers for the input R.O.R

i think you're right.

the charges prob would outweigh the salvage costs

you would think the insurance company would communicate that kind of message properly!