car insurance query

I know this is off topic, but i thought i'd ask some advice.

This morning, i was in a car accident.

A car drove into the back of my car, other driver has admitted liability and and the insurance is dealing with it all.

Now my query is, to me its all superficial damage on my car, the tow bar in my opinion saved my car, the same cant be said for his car.

The insurers are arranging for my car to be collected and the damage assessed. Now my car is a 2006 car and I'll get peanuts for it from the insurance, if it is written off.

Now if they decide its not cost affective to repair the car and its deemed road worthy, can I just ask to have the car back as is? yeah it looks slightly unsightly from behind, but i can live with that for a year or so.

I called my insurance up and either I wasn't clear enough, or he just didnt understand my question.

He just suggested stopping the firm from collecting the car, or i can just cancel the claim...

It depends on the value of the car before the accident and how much the new parts will be and fitting, also if there is structural damage to the rear of the car, are there any ripples in the rear quarter panels or do they look straight, fit is deemed cat b written off then it will be a scrap vehicle

You must have terrible whiplash

Not all injuries are visible at the time, my SIL, had a bump a couple of years ago, it was only 6 months later that a problem arose due to the accident, and never accept their first offer

If you don't want to send the car away for estimate and run the risk of it being written off you need to tell your insurer you don't wish to make a claim - they can't force it on you.

However, if they do decide it's structural, or uneconomical to repair and record it a cat N or cat S etc write-off you will be stuck with that ( and will gave to buy back the car if you want to keep it)

It's ages since I've had to be involved this kind of I but when it happened to me I let the car be declared a write off, accepted a figure, then bought the car back and just ran it like it was.

But on a previous occasion when I wanted to do something similar they went and scrapped the car before I had chance to sort it out.

So there's no simple answer that applies universally. I guess it depends on how your insurers handle it.

Thanks for the feed back guys,

The insurance have decided its a write off from my photographs, no ones been in touch to collect it yet.

Ive had a mechanic friend check it all over and he says its just superficial damage. So looks like i'll try and see if i can arrange to buy it off of them first.

When ive finished with it I'll just scrap it.

I guess I'll have to decline their first offer first, and THEN ask to buy it back

You can keep the car if you want. The insurance They will pay you market value or less, however you will need to get the car a new MOT

ah ok thanks for that, I hadn't thought of that.

It only had its MOT two weeks ago, fingers crossed nothing new is on there that would fail it.