Hello all
My step daughter was involved in a collision last Tuesday. The police and insurance company have deemed it to be her fault. She has comprehensive insurance and the car recovered (though not by the insurance company due to a breakdown in communications) to a local yard then on to the insurer's approved repairer. She has been told today that it is a write-off.
As well as the excess (which of course, she has to pay) she has been told that she must also pay £300 to scrap the car. I don't know whether the garage or the insurance company want her to pay this but I'm a little unsure as to why she should stump up to scrap a car that has been written off by her insurance company.
She's also been given a courtesy car by the garage so now her car has been written off, I'd imagine that she'd have to give the courtesy car back quick-smart. Thing is, she lives in Manchester and the garage is in Wallasey - a distance of about 50 miles. She's a nurse and works 12 hour shifts so can she pick and choose when to return the car? She's pretty upset by it all to be honest and her current stance is 'if they want their car they can come and get it' - not a view that the garage would concur with, I'd wager...
Just for reference, her car's a '52' plate Fiat Punto 1.2 Active.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Edited by Badwolf {P} on 09/02/2010 at 19:24
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Firstly I take it you're daughter was OK and not injured as such?
As far as the courtesy car is concerned, some policies have a free courtesy car for x number of days, so although she may have to give this one back, she may be entitled to another.
If she explains to the garage what she does for a living and her situation they mey be a little more lenient with her. If it were my garage and I didn't need the car back in a hurry I would probably give her more leeway than someone who could 9 to 5 it with public transport, especially given her profession. It's not PC to give nurses a hard time.
As for the £300 charge to scrap a vehicle. This may be associated with recovery costs, which should be covered under her policy. She needs to find out who is levying this charge and if it is her insurance co, ask them to point to the clauses and justify this charge. Often these so called costs disappear when challenged.
Someone else will be along to advise on this I'm sure.
But most of all, she's OK and that is the main thing.
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Had a courtesy car from the garage while my car was being assessed. Once it was declared a write off (own fault, not a motoring accident) they advised me to get the hire car back next day to avoid charges.
Edited by smokie on 09/02/2010 at 23:42
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Re: courtesy car. As said, it varies between insurers.
When I pranged my previous car I was allowed a hire car for as long as the repair took, or 14 days if it was declared a write off. Direct Line insurance, btw.
When my father recently pranged his car, he had to hand back the loan car as soon as his car was declared a write off. Co-Op insurance, btw. In some respects it was fortunate that Christmas got in the way and he managed to keep the loan car for 6 days, otherwise he would have had to have handed it back on Christmas eve.
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Hugo - apart from a slightly sore neck and a large dent in her pride, she's fine. Thank you for asking.
Her uncle has spoken to a solicitor friend who has told him that, under no circumstances, should she pay this 'scrappage charge'.
Unfortunately, she is now determined to buy the car from the insurance company and get it fixed by a family friend who is in the trade, and also very competent. I'm not too happy about this as, in my opinion, once a car has sustained enough damage to make it a write-off, it is never quite the same again no matter how well it is fixed. She says that she intends to keep it until it falls apart so the re-sale element shouldn't be a problem, but I am worried about the expense involved. She'd have to pay to get the car trailered from Wallasey to Southport, then pay to have it fixed and then have the hassle of having it inspected by the DVLA. Trouble is, she is very headstrong and, this being her first car she is very (and perhaps unhealthily!) attached to it.
Any ideas how best to dissuade her from doing this?
Thanks in advance :-)
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>>Any ideas how best to dissuade her from doing this?
Buy her another car quick???
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If only we could, M.M! Pecuniary impeculiarity precludes.
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Find her another punto in a nicer colour/better spec? If it costs more to repair and buy back than another similar or better car then she's mad.
The electric power steering on those is a few hundred quid and it's coming up to the the age when they often fail.
Recovery for a normal recovery firm is about £50 an hour so it'll probably be £150 for a start.
See if you can get that friend of hers to give her an outrageously expensive amount to repair the car so she goes off the idea...
Plus if she goes down the repair route she could be without a car for weeks! Or she could just go find another at a dealer and be without a car for maybe a week....
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My wife wrote off her car about a year and a half ago.
At the time it was a 7 year old Astra diesel.
After careful inspection, we decided to keep it, and I did the repairs myself.
It needed a new radiator, which was easy to fit, plus a new front bumper. To make it easy, I bought a bumper ready painted.
It also needed one new front tyre.
We also got the VIC check - vehicle identity check carried out because it was a cat C write off. Cost of this is £41. The insurance company also asked for a new MOT.
It was only worth repairing because all the bodywork was undamaged. Had any panels needed replacing, it would have had to have gone to a bodyshop, and it wouldn't have been worthwhile.
We only repaired the car because we knew exactly what needed replacing. Even then, the unexpected happened. 3 weeks later, the water pump failed, because the old one had run dry for a short time. (Fortunately an easy repair on the diesel)
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Well, the insurance company have offered her £700 for her car which I think is an insult. It's not in the best pre-accident condition (a few dings and scratches here and there) but I've spied older ones with more miles on Autotrader for £1.5k and up. She's told the insurance company that that is not enough and they've asked her to provide 'quotes' to show that an equivalent car would be worth more than £700. Hey-ho....
Edited by Badwolf {P} on 10/02/2010 at 19:48
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I went onto Autotrader and clipped ads of the same model/age/mileage and got another 25% from the other party's insurers., so it's worth 30 mins of effort.
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Indeed so, onb. Another question, though. Her insurance company now want around £300 (seems a common figure...) off her for the balance of her insurance for the year. She pays by instalments, so I presume this figure is what's left. However, surely the insurance company can't insist that she pays them for something that she's not going to use?
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In that regard they are correct. They lent her the money to buy an annual policy, they did not sell her a monthly policy and rightly want their money back.
If she had paid for it all and had a write off accident she wouldn't get a refund.
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I thought that that may be the case. Oh well, she's not going to have much left once they deduct that and her excess! One of life's harsh lessons, I feel.
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"However, surely the insurance company can't insist that she pays them for something that she's not going to use?"
Yes, they can, a write off means termination of the policy, if you had paid the premium in one payment you would lose the lot, so paying by monthly instalments is no different, they will deduct the full premium from the settlement
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£700 is a proper put down but unfortunately by the time you have it delivered to a garage and all the bits bolted on and painted then the cars going to stand her a pretty packet
Basically the insurance company are a set of robbers ,pity they cant be named but i have a good idea of who they are anyway.
The choice as they say is hers, but tell her to go to a decent insurer next time,one that understands an accident is why she bought insurance
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bell boy - they are Quite Dreadful, if that's not too cryptic?
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And as the insurance co have written off her car she'll also have to get a new policy having just had a total loss.... She should be able to insist they find her an equivalent car. Dirty low offers are par for the course these days.
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