Insurance advice plz

[jakebullet]

I haz (lightly) T boned an audi a6 with my disco. Damaged to disco appears to be indicator & bumper. To my mind an obviously repairable automobile. However, it is a 99 disco 2 with 165K on the clock, so I suspect insurance are not going to see it that way.
 
I've phoned insurance to report accident. Their real claims department are going to phone me back sometime.
 
I know the rule about not letting them take it away for 'assessment', but advice on how to play this would be gratefully received.

[dollywobbler]

I wouldn't let them anywhere near it. Just buy the bits yourself. By the time you've factored in your excess, your insurance won't be contributing much to it and as you rightly predict, might well write the vehicle off. You had no choice but to inform your insurance company of the incident, as you hit someone else, but I don't think that means you can't just fix your car yourself. A friend has just done likewise. Trying to remember if she bought it back as salvage or just didn't bother letting the insurance fix it.

[skattrd]

If you can repair it yourself then don't put in a claim for it.

I had a minor accident earlier this year in the boring, even though the other party was at fault I didn't want to claim as knew they'd write the car off. I'd get peanuts for a 14yr old car with over 200k on it that I knew was sound.

[purplebargeken]

I lightly rear ended a Vaux a couple of years ago in one of my Daf's. I told the ins comp that I would be repairing the damage myself. They were fine with that. Some silly cow hit me when I was in an Escort. I fixed the bumper and bonnet myself, didn't even claim. Easy peasy, no issues. Take no poop from them. Just explain that the damage is slight and purely cosmetic. Should be fine. 

[Jim Bell]

Dont sell it to a man from London.

[purplebargeken]

Make sure you get a dated and timed receipt if you do 

[vulgalour]

All above advice appears sound.  I made the mistake of letting them take the Princess off me when I had my bump and they were extremely reluctant to let me have the car back and became increasingly unhelpful.  Only waving a cold hard bank card at the recovery truck resolved the issue in the end and the rest, as you know, is history.

[gary_davidson]

I'd just repair this myself rather than claim, chances are the parts are less than your excess, I can't imagine it will take long to swap the parts over, probably less time than you'd spend on the phone to the insurance sorting out them fixing it.

[jakebullet]

Cheers chaps! I'll get Eddie Shovelhands to look at it to make sure I've not missed anything obvious like a wonky chassis, then bugger the insurance off and fix myself.