Morris Minor Owners Club

I am writing to inform anyone who owns a Morris Minor or classic car in North Wales that their car may not be safe.
At 0200hr on monday 7th Apil 2008 my car was taken from my drive and pushed to a hill, it was bump started and the thief hit a parked car after going the wrong way up a one way street. He still tried to escape in my car even after he had stalled it. The thief has obviously come for my car and did not plan to give it back on monday, as he only left after my car refused to start and when he was disturbed by the man who's car he has hit. iv been extremely lucky that it wasnt burnt out. The car is accident damaged and im hoping that the insurance wont write it off. The police have recovered lots of finger prints, so watch this space.

Tom

Lets hope they cut the fingers off to match them up!

When you talk to the insurance company, make sure to tell them that you don't agree to sign over the rights to the car if it's written off. It's your car but the insurance company prefer to forget that.

The price to fix a car using 2nd hand parts can mkae it worthwile to repair even if the insurance company don't want to.

If the insurance make a full pay out then the car is no longer your property as you will be required to give them all of the cars documents. The car will only be yours if you buy it back, with a resulting lower payout or if your policy specifically states that you have a full salvage claim.
A customer of ours is going through this procedure now and you would be amazed at the antics of the insurance company ( a major player in minor cover)

Ray is right. I had a damaged car that I struggled to retreive from the damage assessors on the grounds that it belonged to the insurance company. They were wrong because the car hadn't been signed over by me but I had a heck of a job convincing them.

Peetee was it damaged or written off. and did you receive less money to keep ownership. was it an agreed value. Gets interesting if this was not the case. Could you PM me the insurance company name.

It was a modern car with cat 3 damage so I still had the option as to what to do with it. The assessor had been told by the insurer that it was their (insurers) property and initially refused to let me have it back. I said that untill I agree with the insurer how i was to be compensated the vehicle was still mine and they were to do the assessment and return the vehicle to me immediately.
Incidentally to futher add fuel to my inner fire my insurer then refused to carry out my request to persue the 'guilty' insurer for repair costs to a repairable car and instead would only offer me compensation and scrap the car.
The moral? Never assume your insurer is on your side.

Peetee wrote:The moral? Never assume your insurer is on your side.

From bitter experience, they are on whichever side will cost them the least even if it means permanently losing a customer...

Well an engineer has been today, and I am waiting for a reply. No doubt Monday now.
Anyway here is a picture of my car. As you can see from the L plates my driving lessons are on hold and I've only just passed my theory test the week before.

Tom
(p.s. note finger prints on bonnet)

You'll need to link to a picture, not an album ;)

Aha, tracked it down - only the one pic there anyway. A bit big, so a link to it instead
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm23 ... edited.jpg

Hooray sorted the picture problem i mean

they are on whichever side will cost them the least even if it means permanently losing a customer

Usually true but it was the other drivers insurer that would have footed the bill.
Then again, perhaps it was the same company as mine?

am I right or is the damage just to the front wing and probably a bit of the inner panel?

Its the front wing, and back wing on the drivers side. Theres a nice deep scratch on the other wing and the trafficator has been broken.
But other than that it starts and runs as it should.
We have had a Morris Minor specialist look at it today who says its not structurally damaged, and that he can repair it. But we are now waiting for the Insurance company to say its not written off and yes to repairing it. Whatever happens I'm going to get it fixed.

Tom

Good for you! It certainly doesn't look anywhere near bad enough to scrap! Hopefully you'll be resuming lessons in a few weeks' time, good luck.

Get that engineer to put it in writing. As I said before, don't trust your insurer to do as you wish. That car is far from being a write off.
Good luck.

From bitter experience, they are on whichever side will cost them the least even if it means permanently losing a customer...

that matches my recent experience too - but I don't expect any less and change insurance companies very often based on price (as none of them seem to operate fairly anyway).

A friend of mine was told his car was written off (8 year old Merc with a minor scrape on buper and wing) as soon as he said that he did not want to sue the other driver for whiplash! This was the first call he made to them and therefore had not even got as far as an inspection, let alone a repair quotation.

Unfortunately, my Minor was written off by the insurance company un economical to repair according, this was due to the fact it would have to go to Telford to get fixed which exceeds the price of the car on transport costs etc.
But the upside is that we were given the car back with the full payout. Which is good news because my car finally goes in to get repaired on Monday Hooray.

Tom

Well done for getting it sorted, and for keeping the car. If you DIY the repairs with 2nd hand panels it can be put back on the road for a fraction of the official repair price.


As for the insurance, as you're a learner driver, it may have been cheaper for them to pay out for the car, and pocket the rest of your insurance premium
I've heard of this happening, where a young driver paying a 4 figure sum on insurance for a Eurobox had their (cheap) car written off for minor damage. The insurance company paid out hundreds which was much much less than the premium charge... and that's the end of your insurance! In these cases I'd want to be with a reputable underwriter, but it's usually far too expensive for young drivers to shop around.

The good knews is that the Club insurance with AON offers very good rates for young drivers and AON has a very good reputation.

Well that's the best possible result, given the way insurers behave these days.
You know, in any other instance of damage caused by a third party, you have the right to have something repaired if it is repairable. Somehow when it comes to cars the insurers invent a loophole that does not exist in law.