Re: car scrappage
Interestingly enough I'm in the middle of this trauma myself. What a learning curve.
The wife rear-ended an Audi on the M50 2 weeks ago in our Pug 206. The damage didn't look bad but was priced at €4.8k to fix. The insurance assessor visited the car and agreed it was a write off.
Now Mr. Insurance Assessor calls me and tells me the pre-crash book value of the car is about €4.9k, but as the 206 is very popular, he thinks the actual value is €5.2k. He offers me the €5.2k, which he says includes €1.2k scrap value. I point out that there's a similar car (same engine size, same year, more miles) on sale on in Wexford for €5.9k, so after some haggling, we agree on €5.5k pre-crash value.
Meanwhile, the garageman tells me he can get me more than €1.2k in scrap. He guarantees me €1.5k. I tell the insurance assessor to pay me the €5.5k minus the €1.2k scrap, and I'll scrap it myself. Assessor guy gets very irate at this and tries to talk me out of it. He refuses to stick to the agreed figures. Conversation ends badly with me telling him I'm keeping my car which I am perfectly entitled to do.
Insurance company eventually pays me the non-scrap value of the car (€4250 - they took €50 for whatever reason). I am going with the garageman on the scrap, getting a few extra quid for it and am probaly going to buy my next car from him, so he's keeping me sweet on the deal.
The bottom line - when the insurance assessor calls you, haggle with him on the pre-scrap value of the car and you can get a few hundred euro more. He's bound to offer a low scrap value, but you garage might do better. Talk to the garage guy before accepting the insurance assessor's initial figures. You own your car, not the insurance company. You are not obliged to sign it over to them.
In this way I managed to improve the total figure by about 10%.