Insurance write off categories explained… ….what you need to know regarding the new category changes.
I’m quite sure that you don’t need me to tell you that the insurance write off categories changed, in October 2017 and the old Cat D and Cat C are simply no more. They have been replaced with Cat N and Cat S…..however I say replaced very loosely….this is not just a renaming exercise…the old categories have gone and two brand new ones have been created with a whole new set of criteria as to which category a car will fall.
Over on our social media page its becoming quite clear that many….even those in the trade…think that an old cat C car is now simply a Cat S and the old D is now a N….this is simply not the case.
The new system, although not perfect in my eyes, is quite easy to understand…S stands for structural damage and N stands for none structural damage….easy eh? So if you have taken out a corner and ripping off the wheel taking the sub frame or chassis leg with it you are going to have a Cat S on your hands…like wise A or B post etc…..while a smashed bumper, wing and head light would be a cat N…simples. As with anything new there still some discrepancy as to what each individual assessors deem as structural or not but as time goes on my guess is this will level out.
The confusion seems to be coming when people try to compare the old system to the new one….there is simply no cross over from old to new. What has become clear is that despite the old system running for years many didn’t/don’t understand it….so they are trying to compare a new system to the old one that they didn’t understand to start with….its getting messy to say the least.
So just to recap on the old system….cat C DOES NOT stand for chassis damage…you might laugh but I hear it daily! The two old categories were based purely on money!
Old System
A Cat C was where the cost of repair…parts and labour at manufactures RRP…would total to more than the pre accident market value of the car.
A Cat D was where the cost of repair…parts and labour at manufactures RRP…would total to less than the pre accident market value of the car.
New system
A Cat N is where the assessor deems the damage to be none structural
A Cat S is where the assessor deems the damage structural.
So if you are following me you will already have grasped that the two systems don’t interchange but lets use a couple of examples just to be 100% clear.
Example 1….Lets say you have a nearly new Audi…lets say pre accident value £35K and you take out the wheel, suspension, drive, sub-frame etc on one corner and the chassis leg needs a bit of a pull to line things back up. So lets over charge a bit bearing in mind we are using RRP and say that’s £15K’s worth of damage. On the old system that would have made it a cat D while on the new system it would be a Cat S. Straightaway we can see in this case a that a new cat S is simply not a cat C.
Example 2….lets say we have the same car as above with the same damage but this time the car is say 10 years old and only worth £8K. So £15k’s worth of damage on the old system would have made it a cat C while on the new system its still a cat S. In this case a cat S does change over to a Cat C but only because of the value of the car and not the level of damage.
Example 3….lets take a 15 year old banger of a Mondeo..worth 500 quid on a good day that’s had a slight tuck to the rear end and smashed the bumper. Brand new bumper from Ford, labour, paint ect….easily over a grand so on the old system that would have been a clearly a cat C but on the new system its clearly a cat N.
So you can see, the old system and new are two completely different animals and we must not try and make comparisons….the best thing we can do is forget cat C&D and just move on….forget all about cost of repair Vs market value and just focus on Structural and none structural.
While we are on with it….cat A and cat B haven’t changed…cat A is still crush…normally complete burnouts or bio-hazards and Cat B is break only.
Please do feel free to stick your comments in the section below if you wish to add to it.