Car Insurance ???

Dean.Tamkin

Hi , i was involved in an accident a couple of wks ago . The insurance guy rang me yesterday to say he has ascessed my vehicle and that he can write it off or i can salvage it .(Not sure what this means )
Q: Which is best ??

Also the vehicle was on a finance agreement which had been terminated due to not being able to pay the arrears and failing to come to a suitable agreement with the company .
Q: Who do the insurance company send the cheque to , me or the finance company ??

Any info or help would be great.

FreudianSlippers

AFAIK salvaging the car means that it is a technical write off but possibly still road-worthy. Essentially the insurance company will write off the car, but you can purchase it back from them at a discounted price.
I would not do this unless you're desperate tbh. The car will never be right again.


I'm not sure who the insurance company will send the cheque to. My feeling on this is that they will send it to you, as you are the insured and then you must pay the balance owed directly to the bank.
Seriously though, don't even think about not sending the money to the bank if they send it to you. Also, when you have the lump sum, try negotiating with the bank and see if they'll drop some fees etc. if you can come to an agreement to pay them the money owed.


I could be totally wrong on both counts, but I'm just posting AFAIK

RGS

cheque will be made payable jointly to you and the finance house.

Dean.Tamkin

RGS wrote: »

cheque will be made payable jointly to you and the finance house.

Thank you , what does this mean . What do i then do with it or does it be sent to me at all .
I would rather the cheque be made out to them and sent direct to them.

Henry Ford III

RGS wrote: »

cheque will be made payable jointly to you and the finance house.

You sure about that? If the finance co. owned the car surely they'd get paid?

Dean.Tamkin

Anyone got anymore info on this???

Dean.Tamkin

bump

ikillcopiers

There seems to be a lot of confusion between write off actually means in general.

A write off basically means that the insurance company has declared not
economical for repair.

So say you get a light whack from behind, bumper and boot are crumpled
and the lights are busted.
Might only cost 1500 to put right (depending on a lot of factors), and there
may be no structural damage whatsovever, also secondhand parts yada yada.

Now, if you have a fairly new car worth €8000 normally, the insurance company is gonna say let's repair that.

However, another car that's a bit older with the same damage might be only
worth €3000 normally, and the insurance company will declare this a write off.

The damage may not be severe, it's perfectly capable of being put back on the road,
but the insurance company has decided they don't see the value.

Most people in this situation will take the insurance company's valuation of the car (3000),
and the insurance company takes ownership of the salvage which they
sell onto a salvage company who breaks it for parts.

Some people (usually with older, unusual cars), will elect to take the car for
scrappage.
In this situation, the insurance company puts a value on the car as scrap (say 1000),
and you would take the car back with the difference in value (a cheque for 2000).
You're then free to do the car up and get her back on the road or strip her
for parts, whatever you want.
Another reason this happens a lot is that a lot of the companies who price
for insurance companies put in the price for new panels and so on, wheras
someone repairing on their own could use secondhand stuff and get the price
down substantially.

This happens an awful lot with older cars, insurance companies will write off cars
over something as simple a dented door and wing in some cases.

Now, in the OP's situation, the finance company is involved.

So first question, who owns the car (ie, who's name is it in?)?
If it is in the finance company's name, I imagine that they would make
the call on wheter to write it off or not.

Also, would they sign the car over to you if you took the car back as scrappage?

I imagine you would have to get on to the finance company and see
what they think, I'd say as long as they get their money they'd be happy out.