CAT 'D' Vehicles and Insurance

Bought and sold 100's of Cat C and Cat D cars. Mainly just cosmetic bumps and scrapes. Some of the more expensive and worthwhile cars have had bumpers, wings, lights etc.


Insurance is the same scenario as any other car, just shop around for the best deal. I've never had any kind of issue with insurance or increased premiums with the companies I've used, but other people have said that their insurance company wouldn't cover them or wanted a higher premium. There are hundreds of insurance companies out there though who do want your business and won't care if the car is recorded as damaged as long as it's road legal when you're driving it.


There's no reason why any insurance company would not pay out if the vehicle is damaged again and again and again as long as you're fully legal and so is the car etc etc (as we all know, they'll look for any reason not to pay out on any car if they can). Just bear in mind that a Cat D car will be worth a percentage less than a car not on the register, so make sure you have an agreed value with them. 

A mate had his nova stolen and smashed up many moons ago, he wasn't aware that it had been damaged previously and when he went to claim the insurance did try to not pay him out to start with. All he had to do tho was prove to them that the car had been repaired from the previous damage (he sent them some pics of it and they were happy with that). His problem probably came from him not declaring the cat when he insured it in the first place, I imagine that as long as you do it all by the book you should be absolutely fine.

Usually in my experience they will insure as normal but take into consideration the previous damage If you make claim.

Claims may be an issue but insurance is not. I crashed a car once and reinsured it with the same insurer for not much more ; the accident was my fault. After a while I bought another one or two CAT C or Ds and they were fine to insure.

Without straying off topic just make sure that the cars are repaired correctly. My 306 GTi-6 was, my Focus could have been repaired better (it basically wanted a new pair of bonnet hinges to make the front end perfect), but one of my cars that was a Cat C had slight damage to the winscreen pillar when I took parts of the interior out in addition to the lower arm bush being a little deformed (as in crashed, not wear). It did handle OK, but it did not drive right when I bought it to be honest.

OTOH my 106 was HPI clear and had clearly been victim of an repair job out of the insurance company. The front end of that was bent, with bodges from POs trying to make it look straight with poor results (read bent inner wings and using pattern front panels; it never lined up right, but it was better when I sold it in comparison to when I bought it.

In a nutshell, check any car carefully, but at least a HPI market will give you the initiative to go for it .