Withdrawing a total loss claim
Discussion
I posted a question about an accident and insurance, but the situation has developed and my question is entirely different now so I decided to repost.
3 car classic accident, the lead car braked heavily, tapped the rear of the car in front and was then collected by the car behind, which pushed her into the car in front for a second time. Clearly my daughters fault for hitting the car in front and the guy’s fault behind for hitting her.
My daughter is 20, her car is quite badly damaged, but she is very attached to it (him) she saved for 2 years and spends every single weekend servicing / polishing it. It was recovered to a local yard by the police and stored there. She called the insurance company, and they explained that from what she told them they were probably going to deem the car a total loss (not a surprise) its a 2012 BMW one series with 100k miles. She is looking at not much more than £3-4K I would have thought. The insurance company told her that they would speak to her before doing anything with the car and it wouldn’t leave the yard. Anyway, overnight she got nervous about it and want to go and collect it, so the next day we drove to the yard and collected the car - they told her that Copart were in fact on their way to collect it, which was not what the insurance company had said.
Anyway, she wants to keep the car and repair it over time as money is available. We could of course buy it back from the insurance company, but considering that she has £1000 excess, will have to pay the rest of her policy in full (another £1k) and then agree a buy back figure, it strikes me that it might be better to not claim for the car at all and just let the insurance deal with the 3rd party claim from the car she hit (minor damage, they were able to continue their journey) and leave it at that.
I’m assuming that we can just let them know that we don’t want to claim for her car and leave it at that?
Edited to add that when we collected the car, one of the guys at the recovery yard (Eggertons) said that they don't assess cars here and normally they are sent to copart for a report, valuation etc. However - having seen how the cars are handled, if they were not written off when arriving at the yard, they most certainly are when they go to copart - cars shunted around with forklifts, lifted up with them and you can hear the additional damage being caused, cars with broken radiators and front end damaged being driven around, cars being pulled around by wishbones rather than putting a towing eye in there. I guess copart earn twice on every car that gets totalled, but certainly an eye opening process and a rather sad one.
3 car classic accident, the lead car braked heavily, tapped the rear of the car in front and was then collected by the car behind, which pushed her into the car in front for a second time. Clearly my daughters fault for hitting the car in front and the guy’s fault behind for hitting her.
My daughter is 20, her car is quite badly damaged, but she is very attached to it (him) she saved for 2 years and spends every single weekend servicing / polishing it. It was recovered to a local yard by the police and stored there. She called the insurance company, and they explained that from what she told them they were probably going to deem the car a total loss (not a surprise) its a 2012 BMW one series with 100k miles. She is looking at not much more than £3-4K I would have thought. The insurance company told her that they would speak to her before doing anything with the car and it wouldn’t leave the yard. Anyway, overnight she got nervous about it and want to go and collect it, so the next day we drove to the yard and collected the car - they told her that Copart were in fact on their way to collect it, which was not what the insurance company had said.
Anyway, she wants to keep the car and repair it over time as money is available. We could of course buy it back from the insurance company, but considering that she has £1000 excess, will have to pay the rest of her policy in full (another £1k) and then agree a buy back figure, it strikes me that it might be better to not claim for the car at all and just let the insurance deal with the 3rd party claim from the car she hit (minor damage, they were able to continue their journey) and leave it at that.
I’m assuming that we can just let them know that we don’t want to claim for her car and leave it at that?
Edited to add that when we collected the car, one of the guys at the recovery yard (Eggertons) said that they don't assess cars here and normally they are sent to copart for a report, valuation etc. However - having seen how the cars are handled, if they were not written off when arriving at the yard, they most certainly are when they go to copart - cars shunted around with forklifts, lifted up with them and you can hear the additional damage being caused, cars with broken radiators and front end damaged being driven around, cars being pulled around by wishbones rather than putting a towing eye in there. I guess copart earn twice on every car that gets totalled, but certainly an eye opening process and a rather sad one.
Edited by cashmax on Friday 27th September 09:51
Looking at the likely numbers, then I would be inclined not to claim on her insurance for the write off of her car since the best position would be her receiving £2000 for the claim and then paying to buy the car back for possibly £500- £1000.
Is there any possibility of claiming from the insurer of the car who hit her in the rear for that damage as maybe without that the car might not have been a write off? Would an Accident management company look at it I wonder?
Her insurance will go up next year because of the accident and claim, probably by quite a large sum sadly.
Is there any possibility of claiming from the insurer of the car who hit her in the rear for that damage as maybe without that the car might not have been a write off? Would an Accident management company look at it I wonder?
Her insurance will go up next year because of the accident and claim, probably by quite a large sum sadly.
I thought the person she hit claims off her and the she claims from the person who hit her.
She is going to have to pay the £1000 anyway, so what difference does it make if she claims for her car too?
You say light damage to the car in front but we all know it will be thousands of pounds once the cost of parts and a hire car are taken into account.
She is going to have to pay the £1000 anyway, so what difference does it make if she claims for her car too?
You say light damage to the car in front but we all know it will be thousands of pounds once the cost of parts and a hire car are taken into account.
Boringvolvodriver said:
Looking at the likely numbers, then I would be inclined not to claim on her insurance for the write off of her car since the best position would be her receiving £2000 for the claim and then paying to buy the car back for possibly £500- £1000.
Is there any possibility of claiming from the insurer of the car who hit her in the rear for that damage as maybe without that the car might not have been a write off? Would an Accident management company look at it I wonder?
Her insurance will go up next year because of the accident and claim, probably by quite a large sum sadly.
Yes this would be the best option, £2k for "repairs" to her car, although it will cost much more than that I think. But not sure how to instigate that, they have assessed her car as a total loss now and offered £4k, but would rather just claim a smaller amount back from the driver who hit her - but the £1000 excess is pure profit for her ins company so i can't see them helping?Is there any possibility of claiming from the insurer of the car who hit her in the rear for that damage as maybe without that the car might not have been a write off? Would an Accident management company look at it I wonder?
Her insurance will go up next year because of the accident and claim, probably by quite a large sum sadly.
cashmax said:
but the £1000 excess is pure profit for her ins company so i can't see them helping?
How do you work that out? Her own damage claim will be more than the excess, so her not claiming for own damage and not paying the excess saves her insurance co money. If they insurer can claim off another party for their outlay in a non fault claim, it's only for their outlay. They can't claim back the excess. The driver claims back the excess from the tp insurer. Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff