Lozzo

I'll just settle a few misunderstandings here, because my job is dealing with ABI classifications (Categories for those who call them that). I work for the largest remarketers of salvage vehicles in the world, every day I check hundreds of vehicle details and amongst other things I ensure that the category is right for the vehicle/damage/PAV before I authorise them to go to auction. I have to argue classifications with insurance company engineers all the time because I think they might have got it wrong, which they frequently do.

Firstly, every vehicle that an insurance company disposes of as a total loss, regardless of the seriousness of the damage is given a category. Total loss means the insurance company paid out and retained the vehicle, it does not mean it was smashed to bits. Stolen recovered vehicles, mechanically damaged and flooded vehicles are also given category classifications. Sometimes these vehicles have little or no damage, but mostly they do.

Cat D is a vehicle (bike or car or whatever, no difference) that has damage that would cost less than the PAV (pre-Accident Value) to repair, but which the insurance company has decided not to repair. Their decision can be for any reason - in the case of high value cars like Ferraris, Bentleys etc it's because the insured will never accept their vehicle back as repaired and for as long as the insurance company are arguing over it, the insured is sitting in a hire car costing upwards of £500 a day - it is easier and cheaper for the insurance company to get the claim settled and cut their losses by selling the damaged car asap. For lower value vehicles like cheap cars, it's just not worth the aggravation of doing £600 worth of repairs to a £700 car, so they pay out and cut their losses by selling the car on for someone else to repair. Sometimes the owner will just hand the car or bike over to a claims company and never see it again, and then it gets sold on.

I've seen cars and bikes with minor scratches that are Cat D, I've also seen vehicles that have high PAVs with very serious damage that requires a bodyshell swap given Cat D. It all depends on the Pre-Accident Value.

Cat D bikes and cars do not need a VIC check before being put back on the road.

Cat C - a vehicle (bike or car or whatever) that has damage that would cost more than 100% of the PAV. The V5 for Cat C vehicles is returned to DVLA and held by them until the vehicle is ready to go back on the road or is scrapped. Basically, the lower the PAV of the vehicle, the higher the chance of that vehicle getting a Cat C. Old motors like 1996 Peugeot 406s with a dent in a door or wing can easily be given Cat C. they are perfectly fine to drive but not the prettiest. On the flip side I've seen some real shockers given the same classification. Generally, as long as the vehicle is worth repairing and putting back on the road, then it goes Cat C if the repair costs exceed
100% of the PAV.

Cat C vehicles will need to have a VIC check by VOSA before the V5 document will be reissued by DVLA. thois applies to cars and bikes

Cat B - has to be broken for spares and the frame or bodyshell destoyed and VIN tags destroyed at the same time, V5 returned to DVLA as scrapped. Everything else except seat belts, airbags etc can be sold for spares. These vehicles usually have serious damage that makes them not worthwhile or safe once repaired. Usually cars that have caved in roofs or bent floors/chassis rails for which a bodyshell is not available from the manufacturer, or lower value bikes with bent frames etc. Cat B is given to a lot of vehicles when we think the damaged car may be fraudulently used to change a vehicle's identity, ie ringing. We are very aware that not all repairers of damaged vehicles are honest, so if we think that a vehicle is trashed beyond repair, but the identity may be swapped onto a stolen one then we will cat B it to make sure that doesn't happen. Cat B vehicles cannot normally be bought by the public, they have to be sold only to certain licenced vehicle breakers who will send back VIN tags to us for disposal and will ensure the frame or bodyshell is crushed.

Cat A - Burn-outs and severely damaged cars that have little or no resaleable parts left and vehicles in which there has been a fatality. These get crushed as is and no parts are removed. VIN tags are removed and destroyed, V5 goes to DVLA as scrapped. The trade can't even buy these, we dispose of them ourself.

That is it. It's not Cat D is cosmetic, Cat C is structural etc, it all depends on repair costs against the pre-accident value. Two identical vehicles aged two years apart with exactly the same damage can be Cat C and Cat D purely because one was worth less than the other at the time of the accident.

Bear in mind that many of these vehicles will come with no service history, some have no keys, some have mechanical damage that you can't know about until you've spent a fortune sorting other stuff to get them roadworthy. There are also vehicles like the 2011 R1 I saw the other day that had a tiny dent in the frame from where a handlebar had bent into it as it fell and minor cosmetic damage to the bodywork that £300 would have fixed, it was a Cat C only because the straight but very lightly damaged frame is so expensive to buy new and then there's the cost of stripping the bike down and rebuilding onto a new frame. All it really needed was a new handlebar, and indicator and some paintwork, the footrest wasn't even damaged. It's a minefield and not one I would like to step into without the knowledge I have.


Hope this helps