19/01/09 Bluecycle Helps Protect Motor Insurance Industry's Reputation |
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Bluecycle, the online marketplace for car salvage, has enhanced its industry leading salvage audit process by including the Certificate of Destruction (CoD) for all category B vehicles sold online, supporting the insurance industry's duty under the ABI Code of Practice to keep these written-off cars off the road. The car salvage specialist has updated its audit process to ensure that all buyers of category B vehicles upload the CoD. This is proof that those vehicles purchased, which due to severe accident damage, fire or flood can only be broken for parts, will never return to the road. The new development will also support the Government's fight against motor fraud and its aim to increase the number of vehicles issued with Certificates of Destruction, which was completed on around 50% of all vehicles scrapped in 2007. Andy Latham, automotive engineer at Bluecycle, said: "We only sell category B vehicles to UK-based operations licensed under the End of Life Vehicle Directive (ELV), which reduces the risk of any category B vehicles getting back on the road. With the completion of the DVLA's CoD, this is an added guarantee for insurers that the vehicle they have sold cannot be repaired or cloned. "The ABI code of practice for motor vehicle salvage states that insurers must demonstrate that they are exercising a reasonable standard of care to ensure that category B vehicles are dismantled and the vehicle structure destroyed in its entirety. We are therefore making it easy for insurers to keep in line with this. "We see many instances of category B vehicles being sold overseas, particularly to Eastern Europe, in which case you can't ensure the vehicle won't be repaired and put back on the road, creating the potential for the seller to face a liability claim or reputational damage." Over the next 20 years, more cars will be built than in the entire history of the motor vehicle and Bluecycle is supporting the EU target for recycling those that are no longer on the road. "From a recycling point of view, the EU target at the moment is to recycle 85% of the vehicle however the recycling target for 2015 is going to be 95% of the vehicle by weight. We are supporting this goal by only selling written off vehicles to ELV-licensed operations." The new system is more convenient for the buyers of the vehicles also, according to Andy. "For category B vehicle buyers, the assurance that all of the customers they are bidding against are also ELV-licensed creates a level playing field and gives extra security. The other benefit for buyers over our previous audit process is that they now don't have to break the vehicles and then take pictures of the dismantled vehicle, which can be an onerous task if you run a very busy yard. "Instead, a certificate of destruction can be completed when the vehicle arrives at the yard and the audit process completed almost immediately, without having to take any photos." |
