Insurance advice

[Angrybiker]

Hi esteemed PH community. Looking for a little advice regarding how to interact with insurance company.

Few weeks ago my lovely facelift XF-S saloon was nicked from the driveway (apparently crims are targetting jag/LR vulnerabilities particularly).
Immediately started to look for a replacement. Looked instead for a sportback in anticipation of no.2 arriving and needing more space/roofrack etc. (I know the current meta for discerning fathers is xc90 or e class estate but I thought sportback had more character and not a lot less space). Found one, slapped a deposit down to lock it in prior to insurance payout. Call with valuation 'engineer' set for 4 weeks time (this coming Friday).

Twist - Police called yesterday saying it had been found and 'recovered - intact'. Mixed emotions, loved the car, moving to estate a good idea. Told insurance. Forensics called today to ask a few questions. I asked about the state of the car - she said inside it was clean and tidy but there was 'quite a bit of damage and scratches on rear bumper; and more extensive damage on front drivers side'. She didnt know if it was driveable, but qualified that by saying she was not technically minded. RAC will look it over probably tomorrow to see.

So I know I don't have all the information yet, but I want to be prepared for calls with insurance. What I do not want is for insurance to fix damage and then slap a cat X on the car, so I have a double whammy negative on the car's value. The best outcome for me is to get full payout and go get the sportback.

How can I play this - can I ask the insurance to compensate for the loss in value from damage repair and cat X? At what extent of damage is it reasonable for me to say no please don't fix it just give me the money?

Anyone have similar experience with lessons or info to share? Any experts know any tricks or angles?

Thanks a lot

[Happy Jim]

Cat -x means that they have written the car off, paid you out and sold the car in to someone to fix/break it.

Your worry is that they say “no probs, it’s in the body shop and will be with you in 2 weeks”. It doesn’t get a CAT marker for that.

Jim

[brillomaster]

well, they wont fix it AND slap a category N on it too. they'll either fix it and return it to you, or write it off, and pay out for it. you could then buy back the car for cheap and repair it if yourself if you want, but it'll always then be a cat N write off.

i'd have thought, with a relatively new car, they'll likely look to repair it and return it to you. in which case, you could then sell it on as a perfectly normal car to WBAC or motorway or whatever, and buy the estate.

to be fair, this is probably the better option, as if its written off and you get a pay out, it'll likely be less than you could get by selling the car yourself. though, it may take a while for the car to be repaired.

[Angrybiker]

Thanks guys, that's helpful about the cat markers - I read some forum post somewhere about a chap who had this same thing happen, then fast forward a year he was in an accident, wrote off the car, and the insurance used the fact that it was stolen and recovered as an argument to reduce the compensation value. I'm wondering if this is just because this chap was with the same company for both incidents and therefore they knew about the stolen/recovered that way; or if there's another stolen/recovered marker that they put on some shared insurance database so they all know they can reduce the value.

[Angrybiker]

brillomaster said:

to be fair, this is probably the better option, as if its written off and you get a pay out, it'll likely be less than you could get by selling the car yourself. though, it may take a while for the car to be repaired.

Actually it's a bit of a strange thing at the moment used car values are actually up - it'll cost a bit more to replace my car spec for spec, than I paid for it. I know insurance companies are bound to compensate you enough to get a similar spec car and I'm prepared for that conversation.
On the other hand I have two experiences of WBAC, both piss take quotes.

[CraigyMc]

Angrybiker said:

brillomaster said:

to be fair, this is probably the better option, as if its written off and you get a pay out, it'll likely be less than you could get by selling the car yourself. though, it may take a while for the car to be repaired.

Actually it's a bit of a strange thing at the moment used car values are actually up - it'll cost a bit more to replace my car spec for spec, than I paid for it. I know insurance companies are bound to compensate you enough to get a similar spec car and I'm prepared for that conversation.
On the other hand I have two experiences of WBAC, both piss take quotes.

Repair costs are up too, so it's a bit of a wash.