Insurance claim question

mp3ireland2

If you make a claim on insurance and the company says "It's not worth fixing and writes the car off" do you have to follow through with the claim or could you say "no I'll pay to get it fixed myself".

Bit of damage to a door and sidepanel of a berlingo, the front headlight and front wheel and the airbag went off. Parts could be got handy enough second hand as there's so many berlingo's... it's a 2005 1.9TDI so assume the insurance company would say it's worth fixing. I'm sure it could be fixed with 2nd hand parts for a reasonable price but we're just worred that going insurance route means all new parts and they might write it off.... just had timing belt and water pump done! Figure it's worth about 3K anyway so the damage would have to be over €1500 to have it written off.....

MugMugs

mp3ireland2 wrote: »

If you make a claim on insurance and the company says "It's not worth fixing and writes the car off" do you have to follow through with the claim or could you say "no I'll pay to get it fixed myself".

Bit of damage to a door and sidepanel of a berlingo, the front headlight and front wheel and the airbag went off. Parts could be got handy enough second hand as there's so many berlingo's... it's a 2005 1.9TDI so assume the insurance company would say it's worth fixing. I'm sure it could be fixed with 2nd hand parts for a reasonable price but we're just worred that going insurance route means all new parts and they might write it off.... just had timing belt and water pump done! Figure it's worth about 3K anyway so the damage would have to be over €1500 to have it written off.....

Few things. If it's a CAT A or B (which it doesnt sound like it is) then no, you can't have it reapaired.

No, you don't have to claim and yes you can get it done yourself however, be warned, the Insurer may insist on an engineers report validating it's safety before agreeing to cover you further on the vehicle.

dricko_lim

happened me with my car before they 'economically wrote it off' even though it was still driveable and insurable. Small damage at the front, and internally the front of the chassis was slightly dented. So I offered to buy the car back as they sell the car for scrap. They were selling for €150 so I offered €200. Claim was for the value of the car for €2500. In the end I got €2100. The money after the bid and the excess. Never fixed the car and even sold it like that for €850 a year later. Made nearly €3k. Crazy!

mp3ireland2

Antares wrote: »

Few things. If it's a CAT A or B (which it doesnt sound like it is) then no, you can't have it reapaired.

No, you don't have to claim and yes you can get it done yourself however, be warned, the Insurer may insist on an engineers report validating it's safety before agreeing to cover you further on the vehicle.

cool but we've nothing to loose by getting the insurance company involved anyway? to examine the van anyway or the quote that we get. Not sure what CAT it is, its a berlingo van. Fortunately we have no claims covered.

So the way I see it is we'll report it anyway see what they say and if they do say it's written off then we can consider our options, see if the require an engineer to examine if fix ourselves etc.

mp3ireland2

dricko_lim wrote: »

happened me with my car before they 'economically wrote it off' even though it was still driveable and insurable. Small damage at the front, and internally the front of the chassis was slightly dented. So I offered to buy the car back as they sell the car for scrap. They were selling for €150 so I offered €200. Claim was for the value of the car for €2500. In the end I got €2100. The money after the bid and the excess. Never fixed the car and even sold it like that for €850 a year later. Made nearly €3k. Crazy!

What a crazy system!

brembo26

^^

Same thing happened to me, I ended up getting €2700 for a '02 Punto, no timing belt changed or anything

goz83

Got €1600 for an fto I paid 850 for. Paid 450 to keep the car and sold for 800 worth of labour to my brother, who paid 370 to get it better than what it was. I ended up getting a manual mivec after that

If ever someone crashes into it, i swear i will cut their balls off. I've put thousands into it and would never get close to what i have spent back.

mp3ireland2

goz83 wrote: »

Got €1600 for an fto I paid 850 for. Paid 450 to keep the car and sold for 800 worth of labour to my brother, who paid 370 to get it better than what it was. I ended up getting a manual mivec after that

If ever someone crashes into it, i swear i will cut their balls off. I've put thousands into it and would never get close to what i have spent back.

Brother driving the van now and said steering is very bad, so must be more damage than we could see. Do you always get the option of buying the car back when it's written off? Be handy to have it for parts if you were to get the same vehicle again....

goz83

If your offer is better than the best offer, of course you can buy it back. Category A & B write offs would have no benefit of purchasing back, unless you strip it for parts and scrap. If it's just an eco write off, you can put 2nd hand parts into her and you will need an engineers report for insurance cover after that.

goz83

also, the insurer, or assessor will tell you what the best offer is from scrap dealers. I would imagine you would be asked for not much more than €500, which comes out of the money you are receiving from the insurer.

mp3ireland2

goz83 wrote: »

also, the insurer, or assessor will tell you what the best offer is from scrap dealers. I would imagine you would be asked for not much more than €500, which comes out of the money you are receiving from the insurer.

Ah right cool the CAT refers to the type of write off, I thought it was to do with the type of vehicle! Turns out we don't have no calims covered and reckon it'd be about a grand to fix with all new parts, so checking to see how much insurance policy will rise to weigh up whether to claim or just fix it with 2nd hand parts, door left wing, wing mirror and whatever is causing steering to be wierd....Are airbags expsnive to get put in does anybody know?

EDIT: Airbag in the region of €800... looks like that could make it a write off after all!