I am unfamiliar ground here so need advice. Please, how does it work to " take a reduced scrap value, keep the wreck (now with Cat X status) and pay out of pocket for repairs."
I ask because if they decide to write it off on account of expensive new parts from Maserati, the most practical way of keeping this beautiful car on the road (beautiful underneath too, all the suspension replaced in the last 2 years) might be for me to pay a panel beater to fix it using low cost parts.
I understand from the forum - Thanks guys. I really appreciate all that you are contributing here - that I might only have 48 hours to respond, so I need to be prepared.
OK I'll try to explain. Let us assume it is deemed a total loss by the third-party insurer (who is liable in this instance) who refuse to repair it as it is uneconomical to repair. Let us put some figures to this. Car market (book) valuation (not the price paid, not the trade price, but the cost to replace it with a similar vehicle in age, mileage and condition) is £13,000.
Cost of repairs £9500 including labour and new parts (they don't consider straightening/panel beating/using used parts from wrecked salvaged cars etc).
The repair cost is now 73% of the market valuation. Let us also assume it has no structural damage.
You elect to take the scrap value (write off or total loss value offered). They pay you £13,000. They might come in a little under £13,00 and you might be able to get them to raise it a little to £13,000. The fact that you paid more than £13k is no interest to them.
The usual tactic is one challenge by you, they review their offer and come back with ONE FINAL OFFER - take it or leave it. Be prepared for that. There used to be a time when they would start low and it would go back and forth several times wasting everyone's time. Insurers have grown up and use their leverage and the good ones make one review challenge and a final counter offer (that may change from the original or may not).
Now let us say you elect to 'buy back' the scrap wreck. They will not give you the £13,000 they offered you. When you agree to their offer, the vehicle becomes theirs to do as they please - usually sell it to Copart and similar as a going concern for repairs through auctioning salvage cars or broken for parts directly or sold to a supplier who breaks cars for parts. If you buy back the wreck, they make a reduction in their offer - typically 20% but can be as high as 30% and they charge you recovery to the garage where it is laying and you have to pay for its recovery out to your premises or location of your choosing. So now your decision to buy back the wreck means they will pay you around £10,400 (20% reduction on £13,000) or £9,100 (30% reduction on £13,000) or something in-between. But the crux of it is, that they will re-classify the car as Cat X (whatever that is for an uneconomical repair with no structural damage in our assumptions).
You cannot change that classification, it will always be labelled as a Cat X car even after you repair it and will be lower value to sell and much more difficult to trade-in at a dealer.
Hopefully that explains what you wanted to understand by the term "taking a reduced scrap value".
In summary: Accept their offer (in this fictitious example) - they pay you £13,000 and they retain the wreck (to sell on, making their cost of offer lower).
Option 2: Accept their decision but elect to keep the wreck (to repair privately) - they reduce their valuation and offer you something in the range of £10,400 - £9,100 (hopefully closer to a 20% reduction than 30%). Insurance companies such as Locktons disclose their offer reduction in this instance of total loss in their policy document.
3rd option: Refuse the 3rd party insurer (at fault) decision. Make a fault claim on your insurance, pay the excess - but subject to them agreeing to repair or deem it a total loss.
They may well consider it a total loss but not guaranteed and they might agree to a repair.
Furthermore, if we changed our fictitious example to one with structural damage, the repairs may be conditional on obtaining a vis-align check and obtaining a vis-align certificate certifying that the car is now straight and within all tolerances (for which there is a fee to obtain the certificate). Vis-align certificates are only obtained through nominated stations - your run-of-the-mill MOT yard ain't gonna do it as they wont be registered with the Government for this and will lack the calibrated equipment to measure crucial tolerances.
Finally, in this situation, the decision to repair or write off is entirely dependent on the body shop inspection and dialogue between them and the 3rd party insurer. It can go either way. Better just to sit it out and wait. They do not consider that repairs can be cheaper using panel beatings and used parts - they price using new parts only.
A good specialist broker friend helped me with this with his years of dealing with insurers for prestige cars. Some cars look badly damaged and you'd swear they would be written off - but they were repaired. Others appear to have suffered very little damage and yet are written off. It is so difficult to tell visually what the decision is going to be. My wife's Micra suffered a low speed rear end shunt. I'd swear the repairs would be around £1500 max. But the Copart engineers valued the repairs at over £3k and structural damage to the floor pan versus a car book value a little over £2k. Even repairs at £1500 would still have resulted in a total loss decision. My wife was emotionally attached to her little runabout car but I told her that it is gone and to live with it. We cannot repair it - it will be a fault claim affecting premiums for the next 5 years. I consulted my specialist broker for advice - even though the car is not insured with him - his view was simple - take the money and forget repairing it yourself. It's a volume produced car, not a rare as Hen's Teeth Maserati 3500 Vignale. use their offer as a part exchange offer against the next car cos the best part ex you'd get with that Micra car is £500 and if they give you £2000 you are better off and buying another vehicle for the wife.