HPI vs Insurance Database

[T5R+]

Pub conversation over cars and "ladies" but biggest difference of opinion over insurance databases......

Someone reckoned that majority of large well known insurers "written off vehicles" will appear on the HPI database whereas, hire cars/some lease cars are insured by a collective and if "written off" do not subsequently appear on HPI. Any wise ones know the answer?

[Thom987]

Ex hire cars are always unrecorded when they come up for sale on Copart, always wondered why it was.

[AndrewW-G]

For many large hire car co.'s the cost of claiming on their insurance for a crashed ex rental car, far exceeds its value . . . so they just punt them off to Copart etc.

A car is only "written off" when an insurance company deems it to be, for example, as per the other debates on this, there can be huge differences between insurers over what is or isn’t a cat C or D

[The Moose]

I think the biggest problem is that people associate cars being on the v-car with accident damage.

You need to use yours eyes when buying a car and just not rely on the HPI check for this reason.

Cheers

The Moose

[Thom987]

The Moose said:

You need to use yours eyes when buying a car and just not rely on the HPI check for this reason

Very much so, a lot of cars are damged and repaired without ever being registered on any database.

[TallPaul]

A lot of leasehire companies will "self insure" their cars. If one of their vehicles get damaged, they will either choose to repair it via normal (or defleet) bodyshops or just cut their losses and sell it damaged. An unrecorded damaged vehicle will always sell for more money than a recorded one, so there is absolutely no incentive for them to inform HPI.
A couple of insurance companies refuse to subscribe to the ABI code and so their vehicles dont get recorded at HPI either.

[Thom987]

TallPaul said:

A couple of insurance companies refuse to subscribe to the ABI code and so their vehicles dont get recorded at HPI either.

Can you name them, even by pm.

[TallPaul]

Thom987 said:

Can you name them, even by pm.

TBH, its been quite a while since I dealt with any insurers who dont subscribe to the ABI that off the top of my head I couldnt name them! One is a fairly major player, I'm sure 10 mins with Google would reveal all. Why do you want to know?

[Thom987]

TallPaul said:

Why do you want to know?

I used to buy a lot of salvage, but everyone seems to be buying from copart these days and as a result prices have rocketed. If I could get a direct contact with an insurance company for unrecorded salvage I would give it another go. There is still money to be made, especially if you are buying them and selling them on quickly, I only buy to repair if I can get the parts immediately. I have a mate who owns a breakers yard so that helps a lot.

[Noger]

TallPaul said:

A lot of leasehire companies will "self insure" their cars. If one of their vehicles get damaged, they will either choose to repair it via normal (or defleet) bodyshops or just cut their losses and sell it damaged. An unrecorded damaged vehicle will always sell for more money than a recorded one, so there is absolutely no incentive for them to inform HPI.
A couple of insurance companies refuse to subscribe to the ABI code and so their vehicles dont get recorded at HPI either.

Yes, most will have some form of insurance but with a very high excess, so it is effectively self insured. Hence it will never see an insurer.

The insurers don't tell really HPI, they tell MIAFTR (Motor Insurers Antifraud and Theft Register) which is run for the ABI and Lloyd's by HPI. HPI and others pick up the writeoff from MIAFTR. Obviously this is easier for HPI !

All ABI members must follow the ABI code of practice, but not all insurers are members of the ABI, although for personal lines motor you are going to struggle to find someone who isn't.

[Noger]

AndrewW-G said:

A car is only "written off" when an insurance company deems it to be, for example, as per the other debates on this, there can be huge differences between insurers over what is or isn’t a cat C or D

No debate.

Cat d = Pre Accident Value (PAV) < £2000 (£1000 for bikes) OR Repair Cost < PAV
Cat c = PAV > £2000 (£1000) AND Repair Cost > PAV

Most insurers set writeoff threshold at 70-80% of PAV (depends on age of vehicle etc).

[Noger]

Thom987 said:

I used to buy a lot of salvage, but everyone seems to be buying from copart these days and as a result prices have rocketed. If I could get a direct contact with an insurance company for unrecorded salvage I would give it another go. There is still money to be made, especially if you are buying them and selling them on quickly, I only buy to repair if I can get the parts immediately. I have a mate who owns a breakers yard so that helps a lot.

As above, you will struggle to find anyone in the personal lines insurance arena. You may want to look at more niche markets, so commercial fleets who may want to move non-insurance salvage on.

What the likes of Copart give us (as insurers) is automation and process efficiency.

Collect the vehicle, get an estimate, take photographs, calculate the salvage fee, and package all of this up in a nice XML message, so that we can just present a decision to a desk-based engineer.

[TallPaul]

Thom987 said:

I used to buy a lot of salvage, but everyone seems to be buying from copart these days and as a result prices have rocketed. If I could get a direct contact with an insurance company for unrecorded salvage I would give it another go. There is still money to be made, especially if you are buying them and selling them on quickly, I only buy to repair if I can get the parts immediately. I have a mate who owns a breakers yard so that helps a lot.

I too used to buy and repair a lot of salvage but over the past 10 years or so, its become increasingly difficult to find anything with any profit in! As Noger said, you'll really struggle to get cars direct from an insurance company- why would they want the aggro of selling 1 (profitable) car to Joe Public, when their salvage agent takes everything from them, good & bad?!

[Thom987]

TallPaul said:

I too used to buy and repair a lot of salvage but over the past 10 years or so, its become increasingly difficult to find anything with any profit in! As Noger said, you'll really struggle to get cars direct from an insurance company- why would they want the aggro of selling 1 (profitable) car to Joe Public, when their salvage agent takes everything from them, good & bad?!

Thats the problem I would be quite fussy as to what I would buy. A local salvage yard seems to get a lot of nice stock, but when I questioned them they said they have to take the good and the bad.