Insurers Are Writing Off Thousands of Repairable Electric Cars

An electric car with a scraped bumper and a dented rear panel should come home from the garage inside a fortnight. Instead, thousands of EV owners are opening a letter that tells them their car is being scrapped.

New research from Thatcham Research, working with the Centre for Economics and Business Research, found that 73% of repair and salvage professionals now see the skills gap in the collision repair sector as a growing problem requiring industry-wide action. The average cost of fixing a car after a collision rose 50% between 2019 and 2024, and insurers are responding by writing off more vehicles rather than repairing them, especially electric cars fitted with high-voltage batteries and advanced driver assistance systems.

The real cost behind a 50 percent jump

Thatcham’s data shows the price of putting a car back on the road has climbed sharply in five years, and the reason is not paint or parts. It is people. Modern vehicles need technicians certified to work on high-voltage battery packs and to recalibrate the cameras and radar sensors that control lane assist and automatic braking. Get the recalibration wrong and those safety systems can fail without any visible sign, so insurers would rather pay out the car’s value than risk a technician making a mistake nobody catches until it is too late.

Dean Lander, head of repair sector services at Thatcham Research, said the automotive repair sector stands at a crossroads: “As vehicles become more sophisticated, the gap between the skills our industry needs and the talent available is widening. This directly impacts insurance premiums, repair times and customer satisfaction across the UK.” A car that once needed three days on a ramp can now sit in a bodyshop for six weeks waiting for a technician qualified to sign off the ADAS recalibration, and every extra day adds to the courtesy car bill an insurer has to cover.

Repair networks report that a single ADAS-equipped bumper replacement, once a same-day job, can now involve stripping out radar units, sending them for calibration on specialist rigs and running a full diagnostic scan before the car is cleared to leave the workshop. Fewer than half of independent bodyshops currently hold the accreditation needed to do that work in-house, meaning cars are increasingly ferried between garages before a single job is finished, adding cost and delay that insurers weigh against a straight write-off.

Why electric cars get scrapped first

Battery packs sit at the centre of the problem. Battery-related concerns are the top issue for both insurers and repair professionals assessing EV damage, and a high-voltage battery pack can account for up to 40% of a car’s total value. If an assessor cannot find a technician qualified to test whether a battery pack has been compromised in a crash, the cheapest call from the insurer’s side is to write the car off rather than pay for specialist diagnostics that could take weeks to book in.

That maths leaves out what it costs the driver. A car written off years before the end of its useful life means losing a vehicle that could still be on finance, usually for a settlement based on a market value that undercuts what the owner paid and what a similar used EV costs to replace today. SMMT figures show battery electric vehicle transactions in the used market are up 32% this year, with nearly one in 23 used car buyers now choosing a BEV, and prices for good used electric cars have firmed up as demand grows faster than supply. A driver whose EV is written off this year, in other words, is being paid out against a market that has already moved on without them.

Thatcham Research has separately published an EV Blueprint setting out eight practical requirements for how battery electric vehicles should be assessed, repaired and maintained, developed with insurers, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau and vehicle manufacturers. The aim is to stop assessors defaulting to a write-off simply when nobody nearby can safely inspect a battery pack, and early figures suggest repair shops that have built up EV experience have already cut their own repair costs by more than 10% compared with a couple of years ago.

The technicians who could fix it are not there

Thatcham’s survey found 61% of repair professionals want the education sector to do more to promote apprenticeships in vehicle repair, and 48% called for greater investment in technical training. Its own Automotive Academy has trained more than 5,000 people from 2021 onward, a fraction of what the sector says it needs as EVs and ADAS-equipped cars become the majority of cars on the road rather than the exception.

An ageing workforce makes the shortage worse. Experienced technicians are retiring faster than apprentices are replacing them, and the research found skilled staff are increasingly tempted into other industries offering steadier hours without the cost of retraining on new vehicle technology every few years. Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, called it “an opportunity to transform our industry,” pointing to the pace of change in sustainability and technology as reasons young people should look at automotive repair as a career rather than a fallback.

Following the government’s Motor Insurance Taskforce Report, Thatcham is now calling on insurers, repairers and vehicle manufacturers to invest jointly in training infrastructure rather than compete for a shrinking pool of qualified technicians. Until that investment lands, the shortage keeps pushing costs, and write-off decisions, in the same direction. Every apprentice who leaves the trade for a steadier job elsewhere adds months to the queue for the drivers waiting behind them.

How to fight a total loss decision

Drivers do not have to accept the first write-off letter that lands on the doormat. The industry’s Salvage Code of Practice, run by the Association of British Insurers alongside the Motor Insurers’ Bureau and Thatcham Research, sets out how a vehicle should be categorised after inspection by a qualified engineer, and policyholders are entitled to see that assessment rather than take the insurer’s word for it. A car placed in Category A or B cannot legally return to the road, but one placed in Category S or N has only suffered structural or cosmetic damage respectively, and both can often be repaired properly rather than scrapped.

Ask the insurer for a copy of the engineer’s report and the specific reason the car was placed in a total loss category. If the write-off looks to be based on the cost of repair rather than genuine structural or battery damage, request a second, independent engineer’s assessment. Most policies allow this at the policyholder’s own expense if the first assessment is disputed, and it can be worth every penny on a car worth £20,000 or more. Check the settlement offer against the real market price of a similar model, mileage and condition rather than a generic guide value, as undervaluing electric cars has become a common complaint among owners who challenge a payout. If the insurer will not budge and eight weeks pass without a resolution, the case can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service for a free, independent review at no cost to the driver.

For anyone shopping for a used EV while this plays out, a car declared a Category N write-off, meaning the damage was cosmetic rather than structural, can still be a sound buy once professionally repaired and re-registered, provided a full inspection report and photographic evidence of the repair are available before the sale goes through. Buyers should ask the seller for the original salvage certificate and check the car’s history through the National Salvage Database before handing over a deposit.

Sources:

• Thatcham Research: critical skills shortage in UK vehicle repair sector
• SMMT: EVs charge up used car market with record sales
• ABI: Written off or total loss vehicles
• Motoring Chronicle: Relay attacks now cause 70 percent of car thefts