Cat N and insurance

[mcm66]

Good morning. My son has a 2011 A3 that was hit by a young driver, drivers side damage to door and rear quarter panel. Did not involve his insurance as 3rd party admitted liability and their insurance settled (on basis my son did not go through his insurance), but determined it was uneconomical to repair. He can replace with second hand door and repair rest, and as car has just been serviced, has new exhaust, as well as 4 new tyres, seems sensible. (4k value pre damage).
Does he have to notify his insurance company. They were not involved and car damage was cosmetic and not structural as stated in the report?
Thanks
Best
John

[deckster]

mcm66 said:

Good morning. My son has a 2011 A3 that was hit by a young driver, drivers side damage to door and rear quarter panel. Did not involve his insurance as 3rd party admitted liability and their insurance settled (on basis my son did not go through his insurance), but determined it was uneconomical to repair. He can replace with second hand door and repair rest, and as car has just been serviced, has new exhaust, as well as 4 new tyres, seems sensible. (4k value pre damage).
Does he have to notify his insurance company. They were not involved and car damage was cosmetic and not structural as stated in the report?
Thanks
Best
John

That will be your sticking point I suspect. If the insurance assessor has decided that damage is structural then they're probably going to need something more than your word that actually it wasn't.

[Amused2death]

He has been involved in a declarable event even though it wasn't his fault. He will have to declare it as it's one of the questions asked when you take out an insurance policy.

[craigjm]

Yes. Regardless of whether it was a category write off or not when dealing with the other company he needs to inform his own insurance company of the accident and the outcome.

[CanAm]

deckster said:

mcm66 said:

Good morning. My son has a 2011 A3 that was hit by a young driver, drivers side damage to door and rear quarter panel. Did not involve his insurance as 3rd party admitted liability and their insurance settled (on basis my son did not go through his insurance), but determined it was uneconomical to repair. He can replace with second hand door and repair rest, and as car has just been serviced, has new exhaust, as well as 4 new tyres, seems sensible. (4k value pre damage).
Does he have to notify his insurance company. They were not involved and car damage was cosmetic and not structural as stated in the report?
Thanks
Best
John

That will be your sticking point I suspect. If the insurance assessor has decided that damage is structural then they're probably going to need something more than your word that actually it wasn't.

I think the OP meant it wasn’t structural. With a lack of punctuation you could read it either way.

[PorkInsider]

For it to be written off, the 3rd party insurer must have paid out for the car.

So your son has bought it back as a Cat N write-off?

Regarding informing his insurer, as has been mentioned above its usual that they will ask if he's suffered a loss when renewing and surely his policy is automatically ended once the car is written off (or is that different because it's a 3rd party?)

And with regard to insuring the vehicle itself, they will want to know it's now a Cat N due to the reduced value, etc.

Edited by PorkInsider on Tuesday 28th September 09:55

[deckster]

CanAm said:

deckster said:

mcm66 said:

car damage was cosmetic and not structural as stated in the report?

That will be your sticking point I suspect. If the insurance assessor has decided that damage is structural then they're probably going to need something more than your word that actually it wasn't.

I think the OP meant it wasn’t structural. With a lack of punctuation you could read it either way.

Ah right. Yes that could be taken in both ways!

[littleredrooster]

PorkInsider said:

...And with regard to insuring the vehicle itself, they will want to know it's now a Cat N due to the reduced value, etc.

In 50 years of insuring road vehicles, I've never, ever been asked if the vehicle I'm insuring has a Cat marker attached to it. I/we have had several Cat D or C vehicles over the years and it has made not one iota of difference.

[mcm66]

Ah yes, bad punctuation! Car is not structurally damaged, it's just not economical for them to repair (new door/quarter panel on a 3 door car). 3rd party insurance based this decision on their engineers report. They specifically said they would pay out and not to go through son's insurance, I guess to keep their costs down. Just wondered was there a legal obligation to inform them and perhaps open a can of worms - if he had done it himself and repaired it no one would be any the wiser.
(Re. buying car back, he didn't have an option, they paid out based on him keeping it)

Edited by mcm66 on Tuesday 28th September 11:20

[martinbiz]

You do not normally have to inform them of a CAT classification unless specifically asked, they will have that information available to them from the VRM. However You will find some ins co’s will not insure them though and those that will
will probably show an increase in your premium . Speak with you co is the best way to find out where you stand

[mcm66]

Thanks for info, did the sensible thing and called insurance broker. Spoke to underwriters who were unconcerned, noted it as a no fault incident and closed the file. NCD unaffected. That was after getting a grilling from I don't know who initially though, wanting every detail and immediately followed our conversation up with a call to a passenger persuading them they could get a pay-out for injury, even if it was only a sore neck. I thought they had clamped down on that nonsense?
Anyway, all good, and thank you.
Best
John

[martinbiz]

mcm66 said:

Thanks for info, did the sensible thing and called insurance broker. Spoke to underwriters who were unconcerned, noted it as a no fault incident and closed the file. NCD unaffected. That was after getting a grilling from I don't know who initially though, wanting every detail and immediately followed our conversation up with a call to a passenger persuading them they could get a pay-out for injury, even if it was only a sore neck. I thought they had clamped down on that nonsense?
Anyway, all good, and thank you.
Best
John

Did they make any noises about still insuring it as a CAT S or N?

[mcm66]

Not a word, Broker took details, passed us on to underwriter to decide outcome, they said simply because other insurance had settled would go down as no fault incident and carry on. That was it.

[Drawweight]

This prompted me to look at the Admiral website and they don’t ask if it’s a write off or not. https://www.admiral.com/magazine/guides/motor/buyi...

I’m considering buying back my motorbike that was written off a couple of weeks ago and phoned Bennetts and they have no problem insuring it but it must have been MOT’d since the accident. There’s no mention of write off when you fill in for a quote so I’m assuming it’s in the t&c somewhere which you probably won’t find unless you 1. buy the insurance and 2. actually read them.


So…some do, some don’t and some have conditions.

As with most insurance not doing your research or actually talking to them might come back to bite you.

[Pit Pony]

craigjm said:

Yes. Regardless of whether it was a category write off or not when dealing with the other company he needs to inform his own insurance company of the accident and the outcome.

And They will want to know who was involved and pass on the information to thier insurer.

[MustangGT]

I was under the impression that a Cat marking is held in a central database which the insurance companies can check? How else would is be known to HPI, Autotrader etc?

[martinbiz]

MustangGT said:

I was under the impression that a Cat marking is held in a central database which the insurance companies can check? How else would is be known to HPI, Autotrader etc?

correct

[IJWS15]

PorkInsider said:

For it to be written off, the 3rd party insurer must have paid out for the car.

So your son has bought it back as a Cat N write-off?

Regarding informing his insurer, as has been mentioned above its usual that they will ask if he's suffered a loss when renewing and surely his policy is automatically ended once the car is written off (or is that different because it's a 3rd party?)

And with regard to insuring the vehicle itself, they will want to know it's now a Cat N due to the reduced value, etc.

Edited by PorkInsider on Tuesday 28th September 09:55

As above - has he bought the car off the insurer or is it just that they have paid out but not asked him to hand it over yet?

If he has accepted a write off payment the car now belongs to the insurer and not your son. They will want to take possession to push it out to auction.

[Countdown]

littleredrooster said:

In 50 years of insuring road vehicles, I've never, ever been asked if the vehicle I'm insuring has a Cat marker attached to it. I/we have had several Cat D or C vehicles over the years and it has made not one iota of difference.

Makes a difference if/when you claim though.

One of my daughter's previous car was written off 3 times - the joys of shed motoring!

[littleredrooster]

Countdown said:

littleredrooster said:

In 50 years of insuring road vehicles, I've never, ever been asked if the vehicle I'm insuring has a Cat marker attached to it. I/we have had several Cat D or C vehicles over the years and it has made not one iota of difference.

Makes a difference if/when you claim though.

One of my daughter's previous car was written off 3 times - the joys of shed motoring!

Not just when a claim is made - when buying, selling or claiming there is c. 30-50% difference.