Insurance write off CAT B v CAT S argument with insurers

[cashmax]

My daughter had an accident (3 car pile up on the motorway) which damaged her car, front and a tap to the wheels along one side. It was a 1 series convertible, 2012, so not surprisingly the insurance company wanted to write it off.

The car was recovered to a yard by the police. My daughter was worried they would scrap it, so we went and paid the release fee and collected the car the next day. The insurance company had said they wouldn’t move the car until they had agreed on a way forward, when we collected it, the yard said we just made it in time because Copart was on the way to collect it.

This process has been quite interesting for me, the first observation I had was that the entire collection and assessment of the car was entrusted to Copart, who collects, reports, stores and ultimately buys and then sells most of the cars.

They also deal with the end user to negotiate value and agree a price.

My daughter wanted to retain the car above everything because she has a huge emotional attachment to it. So they agreed on a price (£4.5K) and offered the car back for £400.

They then mentioned that the car would be classed as a CAT B. We asked them why it was Cat B and could they look again because we ultimately, over time, wanted to rebuild the car.

They came back with this -



Firstly - it strikes me that having Copart acting as the loss adjuster, classifying vehicles, whilst also being responsible for the storage and breaking/selling the salvage is a huge conflict of interest, largely because they get to decide the fate of vehicles that can favor their business interest.

Secondly, they have not seen the car, in fact no one other than us has seen the car, they have seen several low res photos of it and that's all. For them to decide that the car is a CAT B rather than a CAT S without even inspecting it seems unreasonable and I was wondering what folks might suggest could be my next course of action?

[DKS]

In my experience, your car will already be a cat B and it's already lost. All you can do now is argue its value.
Some insurers even argue that you can't break it for parts if you're not a registered dismantler for environmental reasons.
If you want to keep the reg you need to claim it within 8 weeks of the accident, something I also just learned and lost the reg I've had for 25 years.

[Krikkit]

Cat B can be triggered a few ways, one of those is >200% the write-off cost. If you've damaged the front and a whole side of a relatively cheap car that adds up quickly.

[cashmax]

The car was collected and is being stored by me. They have made an offer, but it has not been accepted yet, so the car is still currently ours - can they have still classed it already?

Also worth mentioning that no one has inspected it, they have reached this decision from a few photos, taken from a distance. Surely they have to at least inspect it to confirm chassis damage (which it doesn't have)

Also reading here, it's pretty clear that cost is NOT a consideration in classification of A & B, that is safety alone?

https://www.abi.org.uk/globalassets/files/publicat...

[DKS]

Yep, mine was done from photos. When I kicked off (I was very likely to repair the car regardless of cost because of sentimental reasons) they did send an actual person to look and he agreed the cat B.
Once they have seen the car they have a duty of care to not let it back on the road, which I get, but I had asked if I could 'pull out' if the value wasn't to my liking which they said I could and not have a claim, but the marker still stands.
In the end I emailed their CEO which only really got me more money (£1050 instead of £340) but you won't get the marker removed.

[cashmax]

DKS said:

Yep, mine was done from photos. When I kicked off (I was very likely to repair the car regardless of cost because of sentimental reasons) they did send an actual person to look and he agreed the cat B.
Once they have seen the car they have a duty of care to not let it back on the road, which I get, but I had asked if I could 'pull out' if the value wasn't to my liking which they said I could and not have a claim, but the marker still stands.
In the end I emailed their CEO which only really got me more money (£1050 instead of £340) but you won't get the marker removed.

I understand that, but the marker is not yet applied as I understand it. They told me that if I withdraw the claim, there would be no marker at all.

[MustangGT]

Krikkit said:

Cat B can be triggered a few ways, one of those is >200% the write-off cost. If you've damaged the front and a whole side of a relatively cheap car that adds up quickly.

Not quite. The only way a CAT B can be triggered is by the vehicle having been inspected by an appropriately qualified person and declared unsuitable or beyond repair. There is no percentage involved at all.

[MustangGT]

cashmax said:

The car was collected and is being stored by me. They have made an offer, but it has not been accepted yet, so the car is still currently ours - can they have still classed it already?

Also worth mentioning that no one has inspected it, they have reached this decision from a few photos, taken from a distance. Surely they have to at least inspect it to confirm chassis damage (which it doesn't have)

Also reading here, it's pretty clear that cost is NOT a consideration in classification of A & B, that is safety alone?

https://www.abi.org.uk/globalassets/files/publicat...

Chassis damage is not specifically a difference between A & B. The main difference is B allows reclaim of parts, A does not. Both A and B prohibit the return of the car to the road. This requires an inspection where the car is declared not suitable to be repaired. Minor damage, no matter how expensive should not result in a Cat A or B.

If the car is repairable and you do not agree to the insurance company write-off it could end up with an S or N category. This would require an inspection by a qualified person to say the car is suitable to be repaired, rather than an inspection saying it is not suitable to be repaired.

[cashmax]

Spoke to them again and they said that it was CAT B because of the cost to repair. It sound like the person I am speaking to doesn't understand so I have asked her to speak with the engineers, which she has agreed to do.

[MustangGT]

cashmax said:

Spoke to them again and they said that it was CAT B because of the cost to repair. It sound like the person I am speaking to doesn't understand so I have asked her to speak with the engineers, which she has agreed to do.

Agreed, cost to repair is not the same as suitable to repair.

Cat A - must be crushed, no usable parts.
Cat B - can be stripped for parts and the remains must be crushed
Neither can be put back on the road. Marker remains with vehicle.

Cat N - Non-economic cost to repair, non-structural damage
Cat S - Non-economic cost to repair, structural damage
Either of these can go back onto the road following repair. Marker remains with vehicle.

[cashmax]

MustangGT said:

cashmax said:

Spoke to them again and they said that it was CAT B because of the cost to repair. It sound like the person I am speaking to doesn't understand so I have asked her to speak with the engineers, which she has agreed to do.

Agreed, cost to repair is not the same as suitable to repair.

Cat A - must be crushed, no usable parts.
Cat B - can be stripped for parts and the remains must be crushed
Neither can be put back on the road. Marker remains with vehicle.

Cat N - Non-economic cost to repair, non-structural damage
Cat S - Non-economic cost to repair, structural damage
Either of these can go back onto the road following repair. Marker remains with vehicle.

I have told them I can accept Cat N or S, but not cat A or B without an inspection. My assumption is that because they haven't/can't be arsed to look at it, it is less risky for them to classify it as A or B than to do S or N if they are wrong.

[Scootersp]

cashmax said:

The car was recovered to a yard by the police. My daughter was worried they would scrap it, so we went and paid the release fee and collected the car the next day. The insurance company had said they wouldn’t move the car until they had agreed on a way forward, when we collected it, the yard said we just made it in time because Copart was on the way to collect it.

Can I ask how you collected it, does it drive under it's own steam onto a trailer etc?

[cashmax]

Scootersp said:

cashmax said:

The car was recovered to a yard by the police. My daughter was worried they would scrap it, so we went and paid the release fee and collected the car the next day. The insurance company had said they wouldn’t move the car until they had agreed on a way forward, when we collected it, the yard said we just made it in time because Copart was on the way to collect it.

Can I ask how you collected it, does it drive under it's own steam onto a trailer etc?

Used a trailer, it didn't drive.

[wibble cb]

I am no expert, but that looks more than superficial to me, either way, good luck with it, years ago one of my old cars got rammed from the rear, they wanted it written off, but I pretty much pleaded with them no to, and they did relent and it got repaired( badly as it turned out)!

[cashmax]

wibble cb said:

I am no expert, but that looks more than superficial to me, either way, good luck with it, years ago one of my old cars got rammed from the rear, they wanted it written off, but I pretty much pleaded with them no to, and they did relent and it got repaired( badly as it turned out)!

It certainly is much more than superficial, but thats not the point, its also not unsafe to fix because the chassis/frame isn't damaged.

[mmm-five]

Have you had it inspected for chassis damage, or are you just assuming there's no chassis damage?

An impact like that might have compromised the crash structure in ways you can't easily see.

[Ed.Neumann]

Seen this before, also with a 1 series.

It didn't look anywhere near as bad as that, but the front subframe is designed to break, and on much closer inspection it had done.

You could hardly see the break, but when you knew where to look it had done exactly what it was designed to do.


I suspect they have dealt with enough BMWs to know this will be the case without having to look at it.

[AlexGSi2000]

I'm with you on this one.

I was under the impression the categories were based on the actual damage rather than the cost of repair.

I'm not sure how they can categorize a vehicle without even seeing it, from the photos it should either be a CAT N or S in my book.
Its then down to insurance to decide if they want to cover the repair bill or not.

Back when the CAT N was a CAT D or whatever it was, I had a bump, the assessor came round and informed me the car was probably a CAT D and would probably be deemed as uneconomical to repair by insurance, I had a chat with the guy and stated I already had priced up parts.etc and would be repairing myself..
I got a cheque that covered the amount to repair and left me with £900 in the back pocket.

Going by your photo, I reckon you are probably in for about £1k if you source parts and fit yourself. I've repaired a few BMWs in that state, they are easy.
Front subframe / chassis legs will be fine going by the photos as all the damage is at the top.

Edited by AlexGSi2000 on Thursday 17th October 11:51

Edited by AlexGSi2000 on Thursday 17th October 11:52

[MustangGT]

Ed.Neumann said:

Seen this before, also with a 1 series.

It didn't look anywhere near as bad as that, but the front subframe is designed to break, and on much closer inspection it had done.

You could hardly see the break, but when you knew where to look it had done exactly what it was designed to do.


I suspect they have dealt with enough BMWs to know this will be the case without having to look at it.

And the subframe can be replaced. CAT A and B mean the car is not safe to repair. That 1 series should be repairable.

[Limpet]

cashmax said:

Firstly - it strikes me that having Copart acting as the loss adjuster, classifying vehicles, whilst also being responsible for the storage and breaking/selling the salvage is a huge conflict of interest, largely because they get to decide the fate of vehicles that can favor their business interest.

While I wouldn't argue against your point that Copart appear to hold too many cards, it's difficult to see how categorising a car as a Cat B over Cat S is in their business interests.

As well as a Cat B being worth significantly less than a Cat S, Copart also require you to be a licensed vehicle breaker to even be eligible to bid for a Cat B. So the Cat B not only reduces their potential earnings through the reduction in fees/commission they will earn, but significantly reduces the pool of buyers eligible to bid as well.