Cat C write off. Worth the hassle?

Doubt they would write it off but stranger things have happened. As for the insurance yes it can be a bit of a bind getting insured because some companies will and others wont so getting a deal can be hard work. I went through the comparison sites but the top 3 that came back refused when I phoned them. I went back to Adrian flux in the end and got a good enough deal. I ended up paying about £100 more than the cheapest quote I had but I had to add a couple of extras so I didn't mind. Only trouble is if you have another accident the car wont be worth a bean to them and you will get curse word all for it.

Add a couple of brackets, possible an inner wing being straightened potentially Plus we all know that accident repair centre rates are never the cheapest. Add on hire car costs etc. and you are not far off a CAT D, if not well within it. 156s I hate to say it are not really worth as much as they were (as hoopsontoast here found, 147s for odd reasons seem to demand more (even the best of those sell for no more than than £4k these days tops).

If it were me, I would let it go through the insurance on the basis that it is not your fault. Try to prevent the car from being written off, but if it is, fear not. Pocket the cash and get it repaired elsewhere using good bits acquired from a donor car (plenty of those to scour from ).

If its ten years old then they probably will write it off. If you can get them to pay you then get it fixed yourself is the way to go in my opinion. 156's are great cars and I loved mine but as you said not worth a bean so try and keep it away from the insurance.

I don't know if this is relevant to you, but i had an escort van which was driven into by a neighbour

The costs of repair outweighed the value so i was offered £650 to keep the car and have no history recorded

With this i bought a bumper and headlight, lived with a dented wing and pocketed the rest.

I deal with written off cars on a daily basis, and one thing I can confirm is that there seems to be little rhyme or reason to what marker a car ends up with. I've seen Cat D cars that are far more bent out of shape than Cat C cars and so on.

If the damage is as light as you say it is, have you considered not going through the insurance at all and taking a cash settlement from the other party as a contribution towards its repair? You could probably source a wing in the right colour and and all the other bits for a lot less than a body shop could. If you're concerned about the safety of the vehicle, any garage will have a look at it for you to make sure there's no underlying, more terminal damage.

As for insuring it, it's hit and miss. Some insurance systems will pick up on it, some won't. I've both sold insurance and I've insured a Cat D vehicle. The former never involved a check of any kind, even when re-insuring vehicles which had been the subject of a claim on a prior policy with our company. The latter also caused no issue as the insurer simply didn't ask. Think about it, when getting a quote, have you ever been asked if the car has a category marker on it?

I'm no assessor, but the nature of your car would lead me to believe it'd be a Cat C as that seems to be the go-to marker for older vehicles (Cat C of course needing a VIC check), though with regular contact with the insurer, you could hope to get a Cat D on it, which means you could repair it on your drive and then hit the road.

Whatever the outcome, you should still be able to drive the car (I can't see any reason the car would be given a Cat B and certainly not a Cat A). Just let us know when you're a bit further down the line then we can all help accordingly.

EDIT: Just wanted to echo the point that the insurer won't want to keep your car. Trust me, they HATE having to sell the cheaper stuff as there's no money in it. It's just hassle for them. Tell them you want to keep it and they'll be your new best friend.

Chris