OK, about a month ago I was driving to a mates house in the evening, it was raining a bit but not enough to impair vision, just make the roads a little slippy.

I went through a roundabout onto a 60mph road, accelerating to 50mph max, some twat in a white van pulled out from a field right in front of me and a hit him kinda side on before sliding parallel with him hitting him again bouncing off and going into a fence.

His van was fine, just a little dent in the side and a couple of scratches, my car (69 Austin Healey Sprite) is a write off. Can't be arsed to list all the damage but it is gonna cost 5.5K to repair (I had to get the quote) and I paid 5.25K for it a couple of months ago.

I was pretty angry at the time but figured as I was insured fully comp (as was he supposedly) it would be fine. Turns out now that the best case scenario is I get 5k and have to buy it back as salvage and pay the rest to get it repaired. Also, hilariously they valued the car at £3750 according to Glass's guide who I just discovered only value cars made after 1997... twats.

My question is, is it possible to get it fixed regardless of cost as it was not my fault (at the mo the cunt who pulled out in front of me is hiding from his insurers so fuck all has happened with the claim)? I guess I was being naive but I thought that was the purpose of insurance. Anyone else been in a similar situation? Any tips how not to get screwed over?

TL/DR: no fault insurance claim, car written off can I still get it repaired without paying a load myself.

We hear about this a lot on the mini forum - this is why agreed value policies are pretty much a must on classics as the book value is usually far lower than what the market value is.

Anyway, if the insurance company has written it off, you may have the option to buy it back off them, but only if the write-off is class C or lower (B can only be bought back by people with a salvage licence; A must be crushed I believe). I think the insurers have the right to say no to this.

In the policy I stated £5000 as the value but it was not an agreed valuation policy so it is all a bit dodgy, however I could easily link them to the bloke I bought it from 2m ago for an accurate market value:
http://www.mgmidgets.com/stock_midgets.php
Mine was relatively cheap compared to some on there!

I was incredibly lucky with my mini, got hit in the back at the lights, repair cost was £1300 which they gave me without question so I bought a new bumper for £30 did a bit of panel beating and sold it for £800. Pretty good considering the rear subframe was on the way out and I bought it 4yrs before for £1600! Still miss that car this one has been nothing but hassle.

Honestly with the sprite I just want it fixed because it is a pain in the arse buying classic cars.