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Insurance lied about my car write off category !!!


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Long story short, my car was written off following a non fault accident. My insurance company (Hasting) sent it to a garage who them valued the damage and then I was told the car was deemed CAT B and so I couldn’t buy it back and it would be salvaged via Copart, however 2 months later (today) I’ve had a look on copart for my car and there it is selling under CAT S!!!! 
 

I have email proof from my insurance company stating it was a Cat B. What do I do, I really want the car back but feel like I’ve been mugged off from my insurance, the bid ends in 2 days!

 

please advice!

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  • Andyorch changed the title to Insurance lied about my car write off category !!!

Contact Copart head office and make a formal compaint as a matter of urgency. See if they will suspend the sale, while you wait to resolve this with Hastings.  If you get the head office compaints email address, send a copy of the Hastings letter.

 

Any contractural agreement you made regarding selling the car to Copart, may be void, if you can prove that you were given false information. 

 

Ask Copart, whether they have repaired the car since buying from you ? 

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Dear Sir/Mdm

Formal notice of: Questionable provenance of vehicle registration XXXX on sale by auction today date XXXX – auction reference number XXXX



I was the owner of the above vehicle which was damaged in an accident. My insurers, Hastings insurance informed me in writing that it was a Cat B write off but I see that you are now offering it for sale as Cat S.

Please note that I am formally notifying you that there is a problem with the provenance of the above vehicle and that it should be withdrawn from sale immediately whilst the matter is clarified.

If it turns out that the status of the vehicle has been misrepresented to me then it is likely that I will be involving my insurer in a legal action and if you proceed with the sale then you will also be involved.

I'm sending a copy of this email to Hastings insurance.

I'm sending you a copy of Hastings insurance email to me informing me that the vehicle is a Cat B write off so there is no doubt that you have been informed.



Yours faithfully

 

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Thanks everyone for your responses, I’ve spoken to the insurance and they’ve told be after they made my settlement they had another engineer look at it and they categorised as cat S and hence the sale of copart. They now are saying they can sell it to me for £5.3k which is a crazy price, as the vehicle is worth 15k and the first engineers report said the cost of repair would exceed 20k. They have admitted that they should have informed me when they changed the category of the car and for that they will

compensate me £100! I obviously did not agree and they have escalated to a formal complaint and in the meantime they have taken it off auction.

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Good. Well done.

Now the thing to do is to understand what your losses are if anything. I'm sorry to admit that I don't really understand anything of it that we want to make sure that you don't come out the loser on this.

So let's have some of the story.

Your car was involved in a non-full accident which apparently wrote it off. It turns out not to be written off at all. What kind of car is it, mileage, model, age – et cetera?

On the basis of a write off – the insurance company settled with you for £XXX?

The replacement value of the car should be £ZZZ.

What are these values, and do you feel that you got the full replacement value?

What is the cost of repairing the vehicle now that you know it is not written off?

And of course you're dealing with Hastings insurance company who quite frankly I getting a pretty poor reputation around here. If you would find a way to trust pilot and a Google and anywhere else and start putting up the reviews about them and what they are trying to do to you.

It's extraordinary that the assessment of its condition was so wrong – and of course in their favour. And it's extraordinary that they "forgot" to let you know about the change in assessment.

Well done on picking it up in the first place.

 

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11 hours ago, Obe1 said:

Thanks everyone for your responses, I’ve spoken to the insurance and they’ve told be after they made my settlement they had another engineer look at it and they categorised as cat S and hence the sale of copart...

 

Isn't it rather odd that Hastings should get a second engineer's opinion as to the extent and cost of repairs to your vehicle?  (And not tell you about it!).  Maybe that's standard practice but seems a bit fishy (and unnecessarily expensive) to me.

 

Is your car particularly rare or unusual in some way?

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5 hours ago, BankFodder said:

Good. Well done.

Now the thing to do is to understand what your losses are if anything. I'm sorry to admit that I don't really understand anything of it that we want to make sure that you don't come out the loser on this.

So let's have some of the story.

Your car was involved in a non-full accident which apparently wrote it off. It turns out not to be written off at all. What kind of car is it, mileage, model, age – et cetera?

On the basis of a write off – the insurance company settled with you for £XXX?

The replacement value of the car should be £ZZZ.

What are these values, and do you feel that you got the full replacement value?

What is the cost of repairing the vehicle now that you know it is not written off?

And of course you're dealing with Hastings insurance company who quite frankly I getting a pretty poor reputation around here. If you would find a way to trust pilot and a Google and anywhere else and start putting up the reviews about them and what they are trying to do to you.

It's extraordinary that the assessment of its condition was so wrong – and of course in their favour. And it's extraordinary that they "forgot" to let you know about the change in assessment.

Well done on picking it up in the first place.

 

 
Thanks :) Basically I was involved in a non fault accident where a drunk driver hit my car and ran away. My car is is bmw 4 series, mileage at 57k 2015 plate, which I purchased for £16k having only had it for 4 months the accident happened and the car was taken away by the insurance. They had taken it to a garage who the said it was a cat B and the damage repair exceeded £20k! I asked to keep the car and they told me I can’t as it was a cat B and it would be salvaged for parts. They then valued my car at 12k! I instantly rejected to them be given a new valuation at £16k, however they had taken away my excess of £700. Before I finished my case I had asked who the salvage company was and was told it was copart. Fast forward 2 months (yesterday) I was on copart and see my car being sold on auction as Cat S as mentioned in my post. I do really want my car back but paying 5.3k sounds like a lot to me especially as they said that it was 5.3k as that’s the price they believe it will be sold on auction! I am happy to pay closer to 2k as if it could cost be anything between 5-10k to fix. 
 

Can the insurance company change the retention value they give? What do you guys suggest me next cause of action to be.

 

thanks in advance 

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1 hour ago, Manxman in exile said:

 

Isn't it rather odd that Hastings should get a second engineer's opinion as to the extent and cost of repairs to your vehicle?  (And not tell you about it!).  Maybe that's standard practice but seems a bit fishy (and unnecessarily expensive) to me.

 

Is your car particularly rare or unusual in some way?

When I spoke to the insurance today they told me that they weren’t sure why the engineer looked at the car again and changed the category, they said they have tried to contact him but unable to, fishy!? My idea is that they decided to change the category as they knew they won’t be able to make any money from it being a cat B car and if they change to cat S they could make some money back. 
 

and nope nothing rare about my 4 series :)

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I think you need to send an SAR to Hastings immediately. This should produce everything – including the reports and any internal comments.

I need to have a think about your financial position here and I'll come back with a further post later on

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I'm trying to work this out as I go along.

The first thing to do is to think about this not as a car – but simply as a £value. This is especially so as you have said that it is not a rare BMW. This means that you could purchase another one and it would mean just the same to you.

You bought the car for £16,000 – and presumably that was the value you gave to the insurance when you bought the policy – is that correct?
If that is the value you gave to the insurer then on my understanding of these things, that is the maximum you would be entitled to claim.
This is the amount you got so although you lost the car (£16,000), it was fully replaced by the payment of £16,000 – minus, of course, the excess – but that was part of the deal anyway.

I've looked at the RAC website for the meaning of the various categories - https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/buying-and-selling-guides/changes-to-insurance-write-off-categories/

 

I see that a Cat S means that there could be structural damage. Cat B means that the car must be broken for parts.

You say you would like to get the car back because you consider that it can be repaired. Personally I think I would be very worried about this because if there has been one inspection which is rated it as a breaker and the second one rates it as having possible structural damage – but repairable – it seems to me that there is a huge risk involved. Supposing you got the car back and proceeded to repair it but in fact found that there was some structural distortion so that the geometry of the car made it difficult to drive. You would then have a real lemon on your hands – and of course you would have allowed a fair amount of money and trouble into getting it going.

Apart from the fact that Hastings behaviour is all rather suspicious – I'm struggling to see what loss you have taken on this.

You would have had to pay the excess anyway – in any event. You have now received £16,000 payment so you are in a zero-loss situation and you could simply go out and hunt around for another car for the same money.

The only thing that I could see which could complicate matters is if you come back and tell us that in fact the car was a huge bargain and that it would cost you more than £16,000 to replace it. But in that case I would have to ask why did you only insure it for £16,000?

The second complicating factor might be that in the four months that you had it, he spent a lot of money on improvements and you have managed to recover that.

Maybe you could let us have your comments on this and also let me know if there is anything which I've misunderstood

 

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1 hour ago, BankFodder said:

I'm trying to work this out as I go along.

The first thing to do is to think about this not as a car – but simply as a £value. This is especially so as you have said that it is not a rare BMW. This means that you could purchase another one and it would mean just the same to you.

You bought the car for £16,000 – and presumably that was the value you gave to the insurance when you bought the policy – is that correct?
If that is the value you gave to the insurer then on my understanding of these things, that is the maximum you would be entitled to claim.
This is the amount you got so although you lost the car (£16,000), it was fully replaced by the payment of £16,000 – minus, of course, the excess – but that was part of the deal anyway.

I've looked at the RAC website for the meaning of the various categories - https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/buying-and-selling-guides/changes-to-insurance-write-off-categories/

 

I see that a Cat S means that there could be structural damage. Cat B means that the car must be broken for parts.

You say you would like to get the car back because you consider that it can be repaired. Personally I think I would be very worried about this because if there has been one inspection which is rated it as a breaker and the second one rates it as having possible structural damage – but repairable – it seems to me that there is a huge risk involved. Supposing you got the car back and proceeded to repair it but in fact found that there was some structural distortion so that the geometry of the car made it difficult to drive. You would then have a real lemon on your hands – and of course you would have allowed a fair amount of money and trouble into getting it going.

Apart from the fact that Hastings behaviour is all rather suspicious – I'm struggling to see what loss you have taken on this.

You would have had to pay the excess anyway – in any event. You have now received £16,000 payment so you are in a zero-loss situation and you could simply go out and hunt around for another car for the same money.

The only thing that I could see which could complicate matters is if you come back and tell us that in fact the car was a huge bargain and that it would cost you more than £16,000 to replace it. But in that case I would have to ask why did you only insure it for £16,000?

The second complicating factor might be that in the four months that you had it, he spent a lot of money on improvements and you have managed to recover that.

Maybe you could let us have your comments on this and also let me know if there is anything which I've misunderstood

 

Thank you again for your response. You are right in saying I could buy a similar vehicle for the money I was paid out but for the exact same specs it would be slightly more, (white car with red leathers and xdrive). There were also some very minor improvements I had made to the car but none totalling more than £300. I think the reason why I would like the car back is I believe I may be able to fix the car for significantly cheaper, I am still in the process of getting quotes from pictures I have. Is there anyway Hastings could allow me to view the vehicle before I purchase of them? 
 

 

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Okay, I hope you won't mind me saying that what we have here is that you have received the insured value for the vehicle and now you are hoping to buy it is a wreck and to make a profit from it. I don't have any problem with this – it is completely legitimate.

However, apart from Hastings rather suspicious handling of it, I can't see that you suffered any particular disadvantage or that they enjoyed any particular advantage – other than they hope to make a bit more from the car at auction than they might otherwise have done.

The most important thing which concerns me is whether you have lost out – and it seems to me that you haven't lost out at all in terms of the insured value. I gather I'm correct in saying that you insured it for £16,000?
If you confirm all of this then it seems to me that you don't have a problem and there is nothing more to say.

So what you are really saying now is that Hastings have a damage car for sale – and they have offered it to you for a particular price – and you are interested in buying it but you would like to reduce the price and is it likely that they would give you an opportunity to inspect the car first.

I can't imagine that they would refuse you the opportunity to inspect the car if they think they are going to sell it. You should certainly inspect it and you should have it inspected professionally – particularly in terms of examining the geometry of the car. However you are still taking the risk – but hopefully you know what you're doing.

 

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Correct me if I'm wrong but you bought the car for 16K and Hastings have paid you a write-off value of 15.3k?  (16k valuation - after some argument - less £700 excess).

If that's correct I'd be inclined simply to take the payment and buy another car.  I understand that you would prefer to buy the car back and think you could get it repaired cheaper than Hastings are saying (are you really sure of that?) but like BankFodder I don't see the point of taking the risk that the car might be more damaged than you think.

Hastings may have acted questionably here, but in essence they appear to have written off your car and to have paid you a reasonable market valuation for it.  (To be honest, if you bought it for 16k I'm a bit surprised that they've agreed a figure that high as a valuation.  Perhaps you got a very good deal when buying it which may be why you don't want to lose it now).

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what i dont get is why as the insurance not paid you back the excess they get that back from the third party

 

i got it back so i dont understand why did they not get your excess money back

 

also you could end up buying the car taking to a garage that could do dodgy work to say its fit to go back on the road to get money off you which alot do or you could take to a pro that you find they say its a death trap to bother fixing it

 

 

Edited by harwoodshane2k
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Sorry guys I’m back, still in discussion with the insurance regarding retention value. I have been told I have to pay £6k to get the car back. From what I have read online the retention value is 10% for a Cat B (which is what they said my car was) and so should be closer to 1.6k and for a cat S it is 15-25% so approx 3.2k. However they have quoted me closer to 40%! What are my options I feel like I am being mugged off from all aspects of this claim. The car value is 15,850. 

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16 hours ago, harwoodshane2k said:

what i dont get is why as the insurance not paid you back the excess they get that back from the third party

 

i got it back so i dont understand why did they not get your excess money back

 

also you could end up buying the car taking to a garage that could do dodgy work to say its fit to go back on the road to get money off you which alot do or you could take to a pro that you find they say its a death trap to bother fixing it

 

 

Thanks for your response, the accident was non fault and as the car that hit me was insured I had to pay my excess of £600 which was deducted from the settlement of the car.

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On 20/02/2020 at 14:23, Manxman in exile said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but you bought the car for 16K and Hastings have paid you a write-off value of 15.3k?  (16k valuation - after some argument - less £700 excess).

If that's correct I'd be inclined simply to take the payment and buy another car.  I understand that you would prefer to buy the car back and think you could get it repaired cheaper than Hastings are saying (are you really sure of that?) but like BankFodder I don't see the point of taking the risk that the car might be more damaged than you think.

Hastings may have acted questionably here, but in essence they appear to have written off your car and to have paid you a reasonable market valuation for it.  (To be honest, if you bought it for 16k I'm a bit surprised that they've agreed a figure that high as a valuation.  Perhaps you got a very good deal when buying it which may be why you don't want to lose it now).


To be honest it is very hard to find the same specs that my car did for around £15k as it had a few specs that are slightly harder to find eg white car with red leather and X drive which is also auto, it was also bought from a reputable dealer which are hard to come by and so I know the car pre accident was in very good shape.

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If you had a valuable antique stolen the insurance co can never replace that like for like so they compensate your financial loss. It doesnt matter that your car isnt available, they are paying you money instead and it is up to you waht you spend it on. By all means buy th salvage but dont expect them to give it to you as well as the cash

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