Hi guys, its difficult for me to comment as each case is taken on its own merits, and at risk of teach you all how to suck eggs I'll try to explain how the insurance companies treat these sorts of claims. (We have approximately 40 different schemes available to us at A-Plan Newbury, and our other branches will have other schemes that we do not have and vice versa. I do not recognise the claim in question so I don't believe it relates to my branch)
There are several different categories of "write off", these are:
Category A must be crushed.
Category B salvage is to be broken down for parts only.
Categories D and C are deemed, uneconomical to repair. These are cars which have been involved in a major car accident and are simply uneconomical for an insurance company to repair, or have been deemed a write-off by an insurance company to minimise hire car charges.
Categories D and C can be "bought" back from most insurance companies, for a nominal amount i.e. the scrap value. You are then free to sell the parts of the car, or make the car roadworthy yourself and subject to certain paperwork (e.g. engineers report and MOT) able to put the car back on the road.
The value of the vehicle is always determined by the market value for the vehicle at the time of the write-off(unless you have an agreed value policy, which is usually only associated with classic car policies).
If your car is repairable some insurers will only replace with standard parts, others will replace with the modified parts. (Of those that replace with standard parts, some are willing to replace with modified parts if these can be bought and fitted cheaper than the standard parts.
As a general rule of thumb most insurance companies will replace with standard parts. It is therefore important that if you want like for like replacement you specify this at the time, so a policy of this type can be sourced from a brokers panel of insurers to accomodate this.
Hope this helps