My car is a CatN write off
Discussion
I had a non fault accident and to me very minor damage. The insurance company has said it required £6500 of repairs, which is insane but as the car is only worth £5000 then they have declared a CatN write off.
They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
Edited by sprocket1066 on Wednesday 14th February 10:37
sprocket1066 said:
I had a non fault accident and to me very minor damage. The insurance company has said it required £6500 of repairs, which is insane but as the car is only worth £5000 then they have declared a CatN write off.
They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
Bite their arm off!They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
Edited by sprocket1066 on Wednesday 14th February 10:37
Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
Some Gump said:
Bite their arm off!
Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
Agreed, although I probably wouldn't even repair it - fetch the wheel arch liner out and straighten the wing, maybe get a bodyshop to have a quick look at the bumper scuff.Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
Krikkit said:
Some Gump said:
Bite their arm off!
Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
Agreed, although I probably wouldn't even repair it - fetch the wheel arch liner out and straighten the wing, maybe get a bodyshop to have a quick look at the bumper scuff.Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
It's a 9 year old car. You can leave as is, or even if you want it back to immaculate, I'm sure a competent body shop who will repair rather than replace will be able to fix that for a reasonable price and you will still have money in the bank.
If you do go the buy back and fix route, make sure you take a few pictures for when you want to sell the car so you can show any prospective buyers what the damage was.
Some Gump said:
sprocket1066 said:
I had a non fault accident and to me very minor damage. The insurance company has said it required £6500 of repairs, which is insane but as the car is only worth £5000 then they have declared a CatN write off.
They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
Bite their arm off!They have offered either £5000 or I can buy the car back for £650 and get the remainder paid to me.
It is a Astra 2015 SRI so I am tempted to keep the car for that price.
The current MOT is already booked for April (we live in Northern Ireland so need to book MOTs about 4 months in advance).
I am insured with Admiral and their call center has been useless with advice.
- do I need an MOT before driving it again and if so, how do you get it to the mot center.
- will it being a CatN make any difference to my insurance premium
Edited by sprocket1066 on Wednesday 14th February 10:37
Bumper and wing from a scrappy, boom you've got your car back how it was, and 4 grand in the bank!
No need to replace anything looking at that. Just have the wing straightened, filled and painted, bumper repaired.
People moan about insurance going through the roof - then you see stuff like this £6500. WTAF. Then people wanting a brand new 3 series to smoke round in at £350 a day. No bloody wonder!
Insurance needs some kind of root and branch reorganisation - some sort of incentive (no excess, guaranteed static renewal premium etc) for people willing to take a smart car etc as courtesy car, repair rather than replace etc etc. It’s out of hand.
People moan about insurance going through the roof - then you see stuff like this £6500. WTAF. Then people wanting a brand new 3 series to smoke round in at £350 a day. No bloody wonder!
Insurance needs some kind of root and branch reorganisation - some sort of incentive (no excess, guaranteed static renewal premium etc) for people willing to take a smart car etc as courtesy car, repair rather than replace etc etc. It’s out of hand.
Yes, if i sell in future i need to declare a Cat N. Check Autotrader and you see the icon. It will devalue about 25-40% (apparently) but for £650, I could scrap it for more.
Terminator X said:
Just out of interest how would this work if sold in the future. It would come up as Cat N damage under HPI check?
TX.
TX.
Does anyone know the procedure if I decide to keep the car?
Admiral say it will be removed from my multi car policy and then I need to add it back on. I am guessing some paper work needs done or something with the dvla and v12. The advisor at admiral wasn't good and said they would need an mot done first, but how can I get an mot done if I can't drive it and as I said, in Northern Ireland we have mot centres you have to go to rather than how I did it many years ago on the mainland and go to a local garage.
Do you think it would pass an mot with minor damage like this? I will get the headlight levels checked first.
Admiral say it will be removed from my multi car policy and then I need to add it back on. I am guessing some paper work needs done or something with the dvla and v12. The advisor at admiral wasn't good and said they would need an mot done first, but how can I get an mot done if I can't drive it and as I said, in Northern Ireland we have mot centres you have to go to rather than how I did it many years ago on the mainland and go to a local garage.
Do you think it would pass an mot with minor damage like this? I will get the headlight levels checked first.
sprocket1066 said:
Does anyone know the procedure if I decide to keep the car?
Admiral say it will be removed from my multi car policy and then I need to add it back on. I am guessing some paper work needs done or something with the dvla and v12. The advisor at admiral wasn't good and said they would need an mot done first, but how can I get an mot done if I can't drive it and as I said, in Northern Ireland we have mot centres you have to go to rather than how I did it many years ago on the mainland and go to a local garage.
Do you think it would pass an mot with minor damage like this? I will get the headlight levels checked first.
From what you have said I'm guessing you are insured with Admiral, so good luck! Admiral say it will be removed from my multi car policy and then I need to add it back on. I am guessing some paper work needs done or something with the dvla and v12. The advisor at admiral wasn't good and said they would need an mot done first, but how can I get an mot done if I can't drive it and as I said, in Northern Ireland we have mot centres you have to go to rather than how I did it many years ago on the mainland and go to a local garage.
Do you think it would pass an mot with minor damage like this? I will get the headlight levels checked first.
Removing it from the policy then adding it back is probably just their way of generating some more premium from you.
I got tapped in the back last year by someone insured by Admiral. Their suggested bodyshop padded their estimate and Admiral made my car a Cat N more than a week before they bothered to send me the estimate that their "tame" repairer sent to them, but not me.
Photos here.
So BMW could have supplied a new bumper cover for just under £650 in primer, but the Admiral repairer managed to get their estimate over £2K. Admiral made me an insulting offer and after some toing and froing I got a couple of hundred quid more. It was still a mickey take but they wouldn't budge, and as my car still drove brilliantly I gave up and took their offer paying 22% of the valuation to keep m car.
AFAIK only Cat S cars need an MOT to go back on the road, but that might be different in NI, or possibly to reinsure with the Admiral crooks!
If they want much to reinsure it I'd just go somewhere else. My nephew had a claim with them years ago when they decided his car was a Cat S based purely on photos he took on his phone - so how did they see any structural damage here?
He kept it, found a 2nd hand bonnet on Ebay, bought a pattern wing, got the front end painted and had some money left.
Good luck anyway, and maybe you need to find a better insurer!
I would also bite their arm off, get it back, then just do what I can so the damage no longer draws the eye as much, straighten it, bit of a touch up so you cant see the black then sell it or run it, depends how particular you are how far you go with the repair, its only cosmetic and doesnt affect the operation of the car one iota I would expect.
Good opportunity to get a nice little bonus ?
Good opportunity to get a nice little bonus ?
Just checked online and didn't realise how cheap you can pick up the bumper and wing. Out of interest does anyone know how hard it would be to replace these, or is it best to leave that to the professionals.
For info, i cleaned, popped the hole a little and a little primmer. Just to see how it looks.
For info, i cleaned, popped the hole a little and a little primmer. Just to see how it looks.
Look up a few YouTube videos for replacing the panels - 9/10 on modern, run of the mill stuff it’s super easy to do. You just have to be careful if there is any brackets/clips involved and if they are broken or bent out of place. But if you’re lucky they will be bolt off/bolt on.
ETA the bumper will be the hardest of the two to change depending on what might be attached to it, like fog lights, sensors, headlight washers etc. But if you do things methodically I bet you can get it done yourself.
ETA the bumper will be the hardest of the two to change depending on what might be attached to it, like fog lights, sensors, headlight washers etc. But if you do things methodically I bet you can get it done yourself.
Edited by parabolica on Sunday 18th February 15:46
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