General Chat

In September my husband had an accident, and his car was written off. He asked the insurance company if he could buy it back and have it repaired and was told this was not allowed, and they paid him the current value for the car. We had a phone call a couple of days ago from someone who had bought the car as an insurance write off, repaired it (he said it was not too badly damaged) and asked if we still had the service history and handbooks. Does anyone know if this was legal please?
Thanks, Liz

I thought this was illegal and written off vehicles had to be scrapped.

one of our cars was wrote off by a royal mail van
royal mail insure its self and gave us the full value of our car

and let us buy it back

no i think they just said if you want it keep it

all sorted with in 10 days of the accident

Thanks for the reply, so did we! Going to ring the insurance company and the DVLA.
Liz

I too thought that this was illegal. If you have still got the service history, etc. hang on to them until this is sorted.

Found this. http://www.usedcarexpert.co.uk/page.aspx?numPage=91

When a car is written off by an insurer, it means that it isn't economically viable to put it back on the road, using an approved repairer. Each car written off is categorised according to how bad the damage is, using the following bands:

•Cat A: vehicle must never go back on the road, and no parts of it may be reused.
•Cat B: as Cat A but parts can be reused.
•Cat C: can be repaired and put back on the road but it must be inspected by VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) before being used on the road. VOSA will issue a Certificate if the VIC (Vehicle Identification Check) test is passed.
•Cat D: very light damage but uneconomical to repair as the car is probably worth very little. The car can be put back on the road, and it may not need a VIC test as any damage is usually cosmetic.
If the car is a category C or D write-off you can buy it back from your insurer and get the vehicle fixed; the process will vary according to insurer. However, once your insurer has paid out for a written-off car, it becomes their property, so they're not obliged to sell it back to you. As long as you offer them more money for it than any alternative buyer though, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to secure it.

Bear in mind though that the price you will get for your car when you come to sell it will be affected as previously written-off vehicles are worth less than equivalent vehicles that haven't been involved in a crash.

Incidentally, you'd better not get caught driving a Category A or B vehicle on the road once a repair has been attempted, or you could be jailed for up to a year.

This may help.


http://www.autocheck.co.uk/write-off-categories.html

we just put a new wing on it and a new door
and a respray and it was back on the road

Thanks for the reply. They took days to decide whether to write it off - we were car less, as one of our sons had my car at the time!
Liz