If I would have accepted my insurance company's judgement on my Rover 45 it too would have been a write-off. That was four years and 60,000 miles ago. All due to an idiot reversing into the driver's door. I claimed from the idiot's insurance company (instead of mine), had a second-hand door fitted and resprayed for about £200, and the car was back on the road. The garage nominated by the insurance company to do the work is an ex-Rover dealer who had a 45 they were keeping for spares. I spoke to them and urged them to make the job as low-cost as possible. They even asked me whether I minded if I had a second-hand door! Of course I didn't! The car at that time was 11 years old and the rest of it was very much second hand already.

I've also had a Category D write off with a Metro in the 1990s. A dent in the rear quarter and a replacement rear light lens was all that happened. The dent was pushed out with a piece of wood and a scrappy provided the lens for £5 at that time. You could tell there had been a dent, but for that car at that time, it didn't matter to me.

The moral of the story is that insurance companies are used to dealing with people who cannot repair their own cars and for whom the value of a car is simply a matter of economics. For us, it's different!

Andrew