Corsa-B.uk - Vauxhall, Opel and Holden Corsa B Owners Club

okay, so 2 weeks ago on friday somebody crashed into my car. he admitted it was his fault and i took his details and on the following monday he said he had called his insurance and made the claim. i was waiting to hear from his insurance because i thought they would contact me. i only just found out i have to contact my own insurance company and they will deal with it. i am just worried that when they come out to see the car and price up the damage, they will see all my modifications and cancel my insurance! anybody know what happens in these situations? i'm hoping since it's his insurance that are paying, my insurance company will look the other way... also worried that they will just write off the car since its officially only worth like 500-600 quid. the damages is: front bumper, passenger side wing and passenger side headlight. but the bumper is a body kit bumper and the headlight is angel eye. even if they did decide to pay out, would they definately send it to a garage? because repairing it to standard would be a waste of time. would i be able to just ask for the cash? sorry for the huge post i just have no idea what to do!

odd, when my mrs had an accdent, not her fault.
the other drivers insurance company did all the leg work and payed out
she did contact her own company to let them know but its the other partys company that should sort it.

chances are if you havnt delared the mods, then they wont even payout anyway if you havnt delared the mods, or just pay out for what the cars worth without the mods you have delared.

i know this seems weird but the 3rd partys insurance company will contact your insurance company for the details about your car and take it from there
you may get a payout you may not, but id contact your insurance company give them the details of the accdent and the 3rd partys details.

thanks a lot mate, but if my insurance find out about my mods wont I get in trouble? and do you know what will happen if they write it off? it becomes theirs does it? I don't want them to keep it with all the money I spent on mods!

i dont think you would be in trouble, they would probably just refuse a payout, or atleast refuse to pay for the mods
you should also be able to buy it back from them if they do write it off

Bear in mind, if the cars worth only £500-600, it'll prob be written off by only £300 odd of damage. Especially if you go to either your, or their approved body shop. But to be honest...if its only worth 500-600, do you really care if it's Cat Ced?

I'm assuming that as the cars only worth 500-600 you are TPF&T or just TP only anyway? Even if you had declared the mods they would only repair to standard unless you have an agreed value policy (ie like for like repair, all mods declared). As they have admitted fault, I don't see you having issue with your insurance company anyway.


Normally insurance companies are quite happy for you to get repair quotes yourself, as long as you get a few to prove that it's not a biased quote.

What you need to do is do some leg work yourself. Get repair quotes from 3-4 body shops. As long as the mods aren't mentioned on the quotes you can claim on the basis of them. Although their insurance company may want to inspect the damage (nothing you can do about that). Chances are the quotes will be pretty generic and say things along the line of 'replace and paint front bumper, replace headlamp etc'.

Use the quotes to hassle/fight for a cash settlement with THEIR insurance company direct, and get the repairs done yourself.

thanks, great help!

it's worth 500-600 without the mods. had way too much spent on mods! what is a tpf&t or a tp?

so worst comes to worst, my insurance company see my car and realise it has undeclared mods. will my insurance get cancelled? and if so would i get money back?

If you were Fully Comp it would be different, you would have it repaired/valued by your insurance company and then they would claim the money back from the third parties insurer. BUT that would likely mean that your insurance would somewhere along the line inspect the car.

You have to inform your insurance company that you have been involved in an accident, I believe that's a legal obligation. But, assuming you are TP&T ot TP (Third Party Fire and Theft, or Third Party only), I see no reason why your insurance company will see the car. It should be their insurance company paying you direct.

The key is not to sit back and wait for someone else to do anything. Get quotes on the repairs, but bear in mind that they will ask if it's an insurance job or not, when quoteing for insurance jobs they WILL hike the price, so get soem quotes for insurance are paying, and some quotes for if you pay personally. Also build up a catalogue of adverts for similar spec/mileage cars (STANDARD ONES!) of as high a value as possibl,e so if it comes to argueing the value of the car you have some basis to claim as high a value as possible. Stick to getting adverts from the big, overpriced car sites like Autotrader. Thirdly, scope out the cost of replaceing the parts with pattern parts, or second hand parts, so you know how much it would cost you to get the car back on the road properly.

Someone drive into the side of my golf a few years ago and I went through all of this. They wanted to write the car off as a 'proper' insurance repair would have cost a fortune. I asked for a cash settlement for much less on the basis that I would repair it myself with second hand parts (which I priced up).

At the end of all this though...if it's only a £500 corsa (I don't mean this personally!) It may be worth just cutting your losses, letting it be written off and taking the cash for another car.

thanks so much ManicGTI, exactly the information i needed! great help!

right so i phoned my insurance yesterday. they took all the details of my accident then put me through to helphire. helphire told me to take my car to a specified local body shop to get a quote. but they said it will probably get written off! plus, do you think the body shop will tell them about my modifications? and even if they do decide to repair it will they repair back to standard? i want to just ask them for money to do it myself but the guy from helphire said i would have to talk to insurance about that. i dont know how to go about it. what should i do?

yea they will tell them as the bodyshop needs to tell them how much it will cost to repair it.
basicly think that anything you havnt told the insurance company about (modifcation wise) isnt coverd.
so if it does get repaird, it will probably get repaird back standard
your not going to see the full value of the car back now sadly

the thing is, i'm taking the car to this body shop, and they're going to send the quote to the third party's insurance company (who don't know that my mods arent declared) so do you think they will pay to have the mods repaired/replaced? i was thinking about printing out prices for the replacement mods to help the body shop, is this a good idea? or will they just laugh at me

okay i took the car to the body shop and they took photos and actually used my printed out prices from the essex racing website for the angel eyes, and the madmotors website for the front bumper! it could be awkward when they see the names of the websites alone lol. but i also received a call today from my insurance saying because im third party, the other guys insurance will be dealing with it. so hopefully undeclared mods wont be an issue... any thoughts?

could u just take the mods off and put original back on?

wish i could, theres way too many though. and most of it was done before i bought the car so i dont have the standard parts. even the paint code is different