Insurance: When is it considered a write off

My 17 year old lad has a 1997 Peugeot 106, 43k on the clock.

Last night he reversed, not realising the passenger door was closed, and the
door was damaged on a low brick wall.

The door still closes, albeit now with a gap with the body that you can see
daylight through.

We took it to two garages, both said the door needs replacing. Which I can
believe. It's badly crumpled near the hinges. We've already received the quote
from one of the garages, £1168.

Now, the car was purchased 6 weeks ago for 1350 (Private sale).

If my lad claims, he'll have to pay 400 quid compulsory excess, and of course
he'll lose any chance of his premium dropping next year (a likely drop of
600-800 quid).

However, won't the insurance company consider a close on 1200 quid repair, on
a 1350 quid (and the book price will be lower) car a write off ?

The car's perfectly OK still to drive about, and whether he claims or not,
it's going to cost him 1200 quid either way to repair. I think I'm answering
my own question here, but you've not spent the day with a distraught teenager

Any advice or experience gratefully accepted !

 

Mark Carver () gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

Put the phone to the insurance down, and send your idiotic offsprog out to
get a second hand door from a scrapper - A door from a Saxo will fit, too,
I think - and a Haynes manual, and get him to swap it over himself.

He might learn something, and he'll certainly save a shitload.

 

Good job he didn't have the door open or the dmage would have been terrible!

I bet you have. Main dealers do cost that much.

That's why premiums go up for careless or dangerous drivers.

They wouldn't pay it as the repair doesn't cost that much.

Why? A scrapyard is not going to charge him £1200 for a door ! Some will
even fit it for a small payment.

Well that might teach him a lesson. That's the last time he will be messing
about with friends in his car.

Don't tell the insurer unless the owner of the wall is going to claim. Go
to a scrapyard and get a new door. Either ask them nicely to fit it, or
find an independant garage who will do it for you.

 

Not enough nots

That quote wasn't from a main dealer, still waiting for that

I had a beer last night, and suddenly everything came into sharp focus. You
and Adrian are quite right of course, in fact I'm going to do even less than
you both suggest. Nothing. It's common, practical, and economic sense.
He can learn his lesson by driving around a 'less than cool' blemished car,
with rain dribbling in, at least it matches all his friends vehicles now.

 

"Not" spelt differently becomes "ton" - as in "the ton of bricks" that
he appears to have run into and that insurance companies will drop on
his premiums if he claims..

And risks a further "ton of bricks" because the police stop him on sight
on too many boringly quiet nights and may find that he too has had a
beer.. Plus, if he has another accident, the insurance company may
easily create problems because this accident clearly happened earlier
and wasn't reported to them. Full disclosure and all that..

Having invested 17 years in him already, a few more hours taking him by
the nose to a scrappie and getting the door swapped (so no one,
including his insurance company, will never know) may just end up to
your advantage, when you are old and dribbling..

 

I take your point, but how is a likely non matching (colour wise) door going
to attract less attention ? As it stands, the only external sign of trouble is
a dent behind the mirror. At first sight you don't even notice it. For the
record the wall is totally undamaged, and the wall's owner (his mate's father)
is not fused so no problem there.

As long as the car is roadworthy (MOT etc) do the insurance company care what
condition it's in ?

 

Sorry, a few words paint a thousand pictures..I'd got the idea the
damage was rather more obvious. As to the colour match, I thought there
was a fair chance that you could get one to match a 97 106.

IIUC, the damage was done to a car and by a driver that they are
providing cover for. Pretty hard to argue that couldn't affect a
decision about whether to continue providing cover and on what basis
that cover would be provided. It was clearly a "total fault" non-trivial
accident caused purely by his carelessness. It certainly alters the
value of the item at risk and what they would pay out in a future total
loss claim.

IIUC, it isn't likely to stop them paying a future 3rd party claim - but
could quite possibly cause them not to pay out on his own loss in that
claim and could cause them to decline to insure him in the future. If
that accident is down to him and involves a BIG third party payout, it
could all get *very* "involved".

The safest option is to notify them in writing, even if not claiming and
get acknowledgement in writing from them. Whether or not the door is
repaired/changed. They quite possibly will file it and nothing else
will result and the premium be unaffected. But, if you aren't going to
do that, keeping the evidence of what you haven't told them does seem a
little, "brave"..

 

Don't claim, do tell the insurers, scrapyard door.

 

That's a low mileage and, if the vehicle is OK, it is worth
encouraging him to go the scrappie route. And if the colour is wrong
you can buy a few cans of touch-up paint. Or even get a quote to have
it sprayed. Before I traded my 504 in on a 505 I left it with a panel
beater to have one of his apprentices give it a touch-up - didn't
charge much - and I got a good deal on the 505.

(then, about three days before the 505 turned up, the 504, driven by
my wife, was badly damaged in a collision about 300 miles away and it
was not back on the road for about 6 months). When the dealer phoned
to say: 'Your 505 is here!' I told him the bad news. But, as the
repair was covered by insurance, he let the deal stand - so I was able
to collect my family in a brand new vehicle and the smash hardly
inconvenienced us. In the small town where the 504 was towed, the
garage had a habit of collecting numerous damaged vehicles over Xmas,
partially dismantling each, and then slotting in the work over the
next six months. Nothing the dealer could do about it (except winge).
And the repair mob did a first class job - in retrospect I wish I had
kept the 504 for one of the kids.

 

Metallic green

[snip]

Understood. I can see where you're coming from. Based on the cost of repair of
this minor incident (and any claimable repair would have to be done by an
'expensive' outlet (?)) any future accident that would involve damage to a
third party, is likely to be considered a write off ? So I guess by informing
the insurance company of this accident now, they will only devalue the vehicle
from their perceived current value, to that minus the repair cost, i.e. a
couple of hundred quid. So that's all they'd pay out for any future 'write
off' claim ?

I've already resigned myself to the fact, that assuming no more accidents,
this car will end its life with me taking it to a scrapyard, my only concern
is to keep within the law, and to make sure that liability to third parties
involved in any future accidents is protected, so to be bomb proof I need to
write to the insurers ? Will that affect his premium next year though, even
though no claim is being made ?

Sorry if these seem naive questions, but I have no personal experience of
making car insurance claims (yet!).

 

Sod that.

I've only ever had one accident - it was fairly big, but still not worth
doing on my insurance. I didn't tell them as it wasn't something that
they needed to know, IMHO.

I've also had theft damage incidents that I've not bothered to tell them
about.

It happens all the time, so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Assuming the next accident doesn't hide the existing damage - the value
would be based on its previous damaged condition anyway. It isn't likely
that the present damage will be attributed to the future accident,
because of its nature. So, if you leave it unrepaired, that's going to
be the state that it will be valued at, whether you tell them or not.

To be "bombproof" you have to tell the insurers of everything that
affects their risk. However, lots of people don't - as Steve (IIRC)
correctly pointed out. Obviously if there isn't an accident later, it
isn't going to be a problem at all and most people don't have series of
accidents in the same car. But, if you are going to hide things from
insurance companies you do need to be reasonably certain that they
aren't going to find out..

Me, in his circumstances, I would probably stick another (matching) door
on it and not notify them. Even if (very unlikely unless left a
different colour) it was noticed, it could easily have been done whilst
owned by someone else..

What I wouldn't do is drive around with clearly visible unreported
accident damage in the hope that the next accident will be in the same
spot or that the loss adjuster won't tell the insurance company that
there appears to be damage from a previous accident. If the insurance
company did make a fuss about it, they would win...

 

I had a lovely big accident. I informed my insurers, told them I wasn't
going to claim, and guess what. They didn't give a ****, and neither did any
insurer I've had quotes from since. What they give a **** about is claims.

 

Write offs tend to occur at around 70% of the Glass' value of the car.
That's because the insurer will try and palm you off with around 70% of the
Glass' value. At worst, with this car (I'm assuming it's insured fully comp,
or you wouldn't be worrying about claiming), they'd offer you cash in lieu
of repair. I've not worked at an assessors for a couple of years now, but
it's basically what they think the car's worth, and you can go and see if
you can get it repaired - the car's not written off, not registered as
written off, and still completely roadworthy even if unrepaired IIRC.

As others have said, get a matching door from a scrappy / ebay / wherever -
look hard enough and you'll find one, and it'll be not much over a hundred
quid even if you pay a garage to unbolt the old one and swap the door cards,
rubbing strips and locks for you...

As for the value of the car, if you repair it with a matching scrappy door,
it'll be worth the same. If you leave it as it is, it'll be worth a hundred
or two less. As it stands, I'd not bother with fully comp being as it's a
fairly low value car and any claim will be made back on your future
premiums...

 

Actually, the visible external damage looks more like vandalism, where someone
might have kicked the panel in, than accident damage. The actual point of
contact with the wall has only lost a small patch of paint, and has a tiny fold.

He's been talking with his mates about it, a couple of them are apprentices at
local garages, or have older brothers that are, so the 'scrapyard' solution
seems to forming without any help from me....

 

Doki wrote:

[snip]

Thanks, interesting. When we signed him up, options for 3rd party didn't seem
to exist, and where they did the cost was only 30 quid lower than the Fully
Comp price. I agree, I was 3rd party at his age, but today with that small
difference it didn't seem worth the hassle.

 

Get the scrapyard door, get it fitted, then get someone to spray it if
you have to - don't tell the insurance. They'll never know (you could
have bought the car with the slight colour mismatch on the door which
you will undoubtedly have after spraying), and would only use the fact
that you informed them as ammunition against him some time in the
future. They rip the arse out of us all the time; don't help them to
do it!

 

Weird. I've never bothered getting a quote for FC as far as I can remember,
but I've always known that I'm very unlikely to claim - the first couple of
years of NCB is very important to your premium IMO.

 

Mark Carver () gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

Oh, ffs... It's not as if they did 106s in a *shitload* of different
colours...

But - as a straight answer - plentymuch less.

 

Oh please. The damage was there already or just appeared in the night
didn't it?

Can the current door hinges be pulled out? It might not take too much
to jsut make the door shut properly.