How much your insurer will pay out if your car is written off

If your car has been written off, your insurer will pay out the insured value of the vehicle, minus depreciation and costs such as the excess amount and how much you still owe the bank.

It is not uncommon for a car to be written off after it was involved in an accident, even if the damage didn’t seem that severe to the naked eye.

This is because car insurers have their proprietary protocols for calculating the cost of repair on which they will base their decisions.

As per King Price, the main reasons for a vehicle to be considered a write-off include:

• It’s too damaged or old for repair, and can’t even be used for parts.
• It’s too damaged or old for repair, but some parts could be used or sold.
• It could be fixed up, but the repairs would cost more than the insured value of the car.
• It could be fixed up and the repairs would be less than your car’s insured value, but the other costs make it too expensive to deal with overall.

If one or more of these factors apply to your unique case, the insurer will rather relegate the car to a salvage yard and settle what it owes you with cold, hard cash.

How much you get

Say your ride has been deemed a write-off and it’s time for your insurer to pay out, you won’t get exactly what you insured the vehicle for as its market value may have dropped in the meantime, and you might still owe money to your finance provider.

For example, if the insured value is R500,000, your insurer will subtract the excess of R2,500 that is payable on every claim, depreciation of R20,000, and the R45,000 still outstanding on your credit agreement.

Thus, you’ll get R432,500 paid into your bank account which you can spend in any way you want, said King Price.

If your car wasn’t insured at the time of the incident, your choices will be a bit more limited.

In this scenario, an authorised vehicle inspector must assess the vehicle to check if it meets safety regulations and subsequently confirm whether it is still roadworthy or not.

If the car was roadworthy before the accident, you could pay out of pocket for the repairs if you can afford it, or you could consider selling it for parts or to someone else who can fix it and resell it on their own.