Car written off, insurance company haven't recorded it.
Discussion
In November last year I was in an accident and my M135i was deemed damaged beyond economical repair and was written off. The repair estimate was almost the value of the car, so certainly not a t-cut job.
Anyway I was wondering today where the refund for my unused 5 months of tax was, so called the DVLA. It transpires the insurers have not recorded it as a write off, and it's still registered in my name, burning up the tax months.
Surely this is a massive procedural fvck-up by the insurers, that they ought to be taken to task over by some higher authority?
DVLA were most helpful and advised to write in with the docs from insurers and they'd sort it out, and it's not like I'm going to get any speeding fines from little bits of M135i which might be thrown past speed cameras, but all the same I feel this should not go unchallenged in some way.
What do you reckon SP&TLawyers?
Anyway I was wondering today where the refund for my unused 5 months of tax was, so called the DVLA. It transpires the insurers have not recorded it as a write off, and it's still registered in my name, burning up the tax months.
Surely this is a massive procedural fvck-up by the insurers, that they ought to be taken to task over by some higher authority?
DVLA were most helpful and advised to write in with the docs from insurers and they'd sort it out, and it's not like I'm going to get any speeding fines from little bits of M135i which might be thrown past speed cameras, but all the same I feel this should not go unchallenged in some way.
What do you reckon SP&TLawyers?
what makes you say they haven't recorded it as written off?
vcar is the database which records written off vehicles, and if it is cat D the dvla will never be informed, if it is cat C then they should notify them so they can do an identity check, but if it is crushed rather than sold for salvage, then they probably won't need to do that.
If you had read what to do on the v5 instead of just handing it over to the insurer, you would have seen the V5c/3 section, "Selling or transferring your vehicle to a motor trader, insurer or dismantler."
You should have filled out this section, returned it to the dvla yourself, and given the rest of the v5 to the insurer, it is this form which registers the vehicle in trade, which would have triggered the tax refund, if it is filled out and backdated correctly you might find you get the full tax refund (but i doubt it)
It is a little bit awkward in insurance situations, because you are meant to get it signed by them as well as signing it yourself, which given the insurer would normally have taken away the car then contacted you to say they were keeping it, there is no one available to sign it, but you are still better off sending it off unsigned by the insurer and signed by yourself, than trusting the insurer to send it off for you, this often results in people getting continuous insurance enforcement fines.
vcar is the database which records written off vehicles, and if it is cat D the dvla will never be informed, if it is cat C then they should notify them so they can do an identity check, but if it is crushed rather than sold for salvage, then they probably won't need to do that.
If you had read what to do on the v5 instead of just handing it over to the insurer, you would have seen the V5c/3 section, "Selling or transferring your vehicle to a motor trader, insurer or dismantler."
You should have filled out this section, returned it to the dvla yourself, and given the rest of the v5 to the insurer, it is this form which registers the vehicle in trade, which would have triggered the tax refund, if it is filled out and backdated correctly you might find you get the full tax refund (but i doubt it)
It is a little bit awkward in insurance situations, because you are meant to get it signed by them as well as signing it yourself, which given the insurer would normally have taken away the car then contacted you to say they were keeping it, there is no one available to sign it, but you are still better off sending it off unsigned by the insurer and signed by yourself, than trusting the insurer to send it off for you, this often results in people getting continuous insurance enforcement fines.
timskipper said:
I signed where I was told to and returned it all to the insurance co.
That's where you went wrong.When i done this with my car, i filled in the new keeper section of the V5 with my insurance company details on it and posted that back to DVLA so it could be registered as a change of keeper correctly from me to the insurance co.
If they insist on you sending them the V5 for the car you can send them the rest of it, minus the new keeper bit you sent off.
Retroman said:
That's where you went wrong.
When i done this with my car, i filled in the new keeper section of the V5 with my insurance company details on it and posted that back to DVLA so it could be registered as a change of keeper correctly from me to the insurance co.
If they insist on you sending them the V5 for the car you can send them the rest of it, minus the new keeper bit you sent off.
ITYM the yellow V5C/3 trader section to DVLA, and the main body to the insurer, as all the instructions on the V5C tell you to do... The green V5C/2 new keeper section would go with the main body.When i done this with my car, i filled in the new keeper section of the V5 with my insurance company details on it and posted that back to DVLA so it could be registered as a change of keeper correctly from me to the insurance co.
If they insist on you sending them the V5 for the car you can send them the rest of it, minus the new keeper bit you sent off.
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water. BMW quoted £14K to repair, insurers wrote it off. I told him to buy it and fix it, he did, it cost an independent something like £500 to get it back on the road, air filers and MAF's. He drove it for another 30k miles and it didn't miss a beat. He went to sell it as a Cat D and found it had never been recorded so just sold it anyway for more than he bought it from the insurers. Naughty I know but there really was nothing wrong with it and there was no damage to any other part of the car, the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself. Just shows how stupid some writes offs can be!
RobbyJ said:
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water. BMW quoted £14K to repair, insurers wrote it off. I told him to buy it and fix it, he did, it cost an independent something like £500 to get it back on the road, air filers and MAF's. He drove it for another 30k miles and it didn't miss a beat. He went to sell it as a Cat D and found it had never been recorded so just sold it anyway for more than he bought it from the insurers. Naughty I know but there really was nothing wrong with it and there was no damage to any other part of the car, the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself. Just shows how stupid some writes offs can be!
Are you sure, not heard of an ins' co' who's prepared to pay for out for any kind of mechanical damage, especially when it's been caused bye the actions of a daft owner, my mate chucked a rod on his xjs V12 a few years ago when it ran low on oil somehow I don't think they would be paying out.Retroman said:
timskipper said:
I signed where I was told to and returned it all to the insurance co.
That's where you went wrong.When i done this with my car, i filled in the new keeper section of the V5 with my insurance company details on it and posted that back to DVLA so it could be registered as a change of keeper correctly from me to the insurance co.
If they insist on you sending them the V5 for the car you can send them the rest of it, minus the new keeper bit you sent off.
RobbyJ said:
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water.
....the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself.
Something of a contradiction there - did it ingest water or not?....the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself.
martinbiz said:
Are you sure, not heard of an ins' co' who's prepared to pay for out for any kind of mechanical damage, especially when it's been caused bye the actions of a daft owner, my mate chucked a rod on his xjs V12 a few years ago when it ran low on oil somehow I don't think they would be paying out.
It's perfectly normal to pay out for cars driven into water.martinbiz said:
Are you sure, not heard of an ins' co' who's prepared to pay for out for any kind of mechanical damage, especially when it's been caused bye the actions of a daft owner, my mate chucked a rod on his xjs V12 a few years ago when it ran low on oil somehow I don't think they would be paying out.
It's very common.RobbyJ said:
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water.
....the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself.
Something of a contradiction there - did it ingest water or not?
I was trying to give the abridged version of the story. It ingested water into the air filter and damaged the maf I believe but the indi took the head off and there was no water. As I said it ran for another 30k miles with him perfectly. BMW didn't do any investigation, they just quoted worst case to replace everything that could have been damaged. All I was saying was I've heard of a case of a car not being recorded as written off.
This isn't one of those "my mate" cases when I'm speaking from personal experience and not wanting to take the flack/prosecution for it. I've never had a BMW and probably never will!
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water.
....the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself.
Something of a contradiction there - did it ingest water or not?
I was trying to give the abridged version of the story. It ingested water into the air filter and damaged the maf I believe but the indi took the head off and there was no water. As I said it ran for another 30k miles with him perfectly. BMW didn't do any investigation, they just quoted worst case to replace everything that could have been damaged. All I was saying was I've heard of a case of a car not being recorded as written off.
This isn't one of those "my mate" cases when I'm speaking from personal experience and not wanting to take the flack/prosecution for it. I've never had a BMW and probably never will!
RobbyJ said:
I was trying to give the abridged version of the story. It ingested water into the air filter and damaged the maf I believe but the indi took the head off and there was no water. As I said it ran for another 30k miles with him perfectly. BMW didn't do any investigation, they just quoted worst case to replace everything that could have been damaged.
You're an insurer. You've been handed a claim for a high-spec car that's been into water way above sill level, has water in the airbox, and won't start or run any more.Do you...
a. Assume that a hydraulic lock is a very strong possibility, there's a very good chance of miscellaneous ECU deaths, so cut your losses, write it off and get the expensive rental handed back asap.
b. Keep the rental out there whilst you incur extra costs for storage as well as removing the head and doing full electronic checks, and still risk there being ECU damage showing up at a later stage?
Yeh, me too.
RobbyJ said:
A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. Very long story short he drove his BMW through a ford, it stopped, ingested water. BMW quoted £14K to repair, insurers wrote it off. I told him to buy it and fix it, he did, it cost an independent something like £500 to get it back on the road, air filers and MAF's. He drove it for another 30k miles and it didn't miss a beat. He went to sell it as a Cat D and found it had never been recorded so just sold it anyway for more than he bought it from the insurers. Naughty I know but there really was nothing wrong with it and there was no damage to any other part of the car, the water was less than 10" deep and none came into the car or the engine itself. Just shows how stupid some writes offs can be!
They are not required to record it as a total loss in this situation, some choose to, and handle it on the basis that it was a total loss and that they have paid out the market value, and then sold the salvage back to the customer.Others may handle it on the basis that it was not a total loss, they paid a repair contribution and the customer kept his car.
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