| Picked this info up a while back
Salvage Classification Categories
When an insurance company considers a vehicle uneconomical to repair their inspecting engineer will issue it with a salvage classification category.
The salvage classifications were brought about by insurance companies through the Association of British Insurers (ABI) in an effort to curb vehicle crime in the UK and were developed with the assistance of vehicle dismantlers, the DVLC and the UK Police Force.
The categories are as follows:
Cat A - Usually fire damaged (burnt-out), flood damaged, or severely damaged with no serviceable parts.
Cat B - Damaged beyond economical repair and/or severe structural damage.
Cat C - Damaged, but repairable. Generally applied to older vehicles.
Cat D - Slightly damaged sometimes stolen and found after claim has been paid or high cost of repair combined with difficulty obtaining new parts to enable a swift repair.
Insurance companies often call vehicles involved in an accident a 'write off' or 'total loss', which can give the wrong impression to anyone not familiar with the insurance or salvage industry.
An insurance company faced with a claim, first estimates the financial cost of repairing the vehicle to its pre-accident condition, and then with the aid of trade journals and price guides decide on what the market price would have been before the accident.
If the financial cost to the insurance company is the same or near to the market price, the insurance company would normally call this vehicle a 'write off' which is an insurance term meaning that they are going to have to pay the claimant money, i.e.; 'write off' the financial cost of the repair, not the vehicle. This type of claim should not be termed a 'total loss' as the insurance company is going to recover some of the money paid out from the salvage dealer.
The term 'total loss' claim should only really be associated with a burnt-out or severely damaged vehicle where the insurance company has to pay for the recovery, storage and subsequent disposal, and where there is no value in the vehicle remains for money to go back to the insurance company, i.e.; they recover no money from the claim and therefore make a financial 'total loss' on the claim.
Other agencies such as HPI Equifax, will often quote the term 'total loss' with reference to a category C or D vehicle, sometimes without the operator being fully aware of what it means. Again, we'd like to stress that this does not mean the vehicle was severely damaged, rather that the insurance company incurred a financial loss.
These terms have had quite a bit of bad press due to their common association with unscrupulous dealers and car thieves and often lead to people assuming a vehicle has been completely smashed to bits and then put back on the road or even welded together from two halves. Whilst there are a few cases where such vehicles have appeared back on the road, as a professional salvage dealer we use the category system to ensure that any such vehicles that come into our yard are disposed of in a proper manner and issued with a Certificate of Destruction (COD).
In addition to defining the 'class' of a salvage vehicle, there is also a condition to issue a Certificate of Destruction (COD) for all vehicles in categories A and B. The COD's are sent to DVLC in Swansea, where a 'marker' is added to the vehicle record to show that it has been destroyed and will no longer be used on a public road. The purpose of this marker is to alert the police if anyone tries to register or license a vehicle that has been destroyed. This is aimed squarely at stopping car thieves 'swapping' identities of stolen vehicles with that of a vehicle in a dismantlers yard.
A vehicle that has previously been issued with a C or D salvage classification is not necessarily a 'bad' vehicle to own or buy. Since each vehicle over three years old has to pass a MOT test before it can be licensed it should have been repaired to a good roadworthy standard. Obviously if you have any doubts about buying a vehicle that has been previously repaired, you can ask a motor engineer to inspect the vehicle before you buy it, or get an AA or RAC inspection done.
[Edited on 3-9-2004 by skidlids]  |