Cat S and Cat N write-offs explained

An insurance write-off sounds final, but it only means an insurer decided repairing the car cost more than it was worth to them at the time. Plenty of written-off cars are repaired properly and go on for years. The category tells you how serious the damage was, and that changes how carefully you should buy.

The categories that still drive

Since 2017, the two categories you will meet on a car offered for sale are Category S and Category N. The older Cat C and Cat D you may still see mentioned map roughly onto them.

• Category S (structural): the car had structural damage, to something like the chassis or a crumple zone, that has been or can be repaired. It must be re-registered before it returns to the road.
• Category N (non-structural): the damage was cosmetic or electrical rather than structural, though non-structural can still mean significant work, such as steering or airbags.

Buying one sensibly

A recorded write-off is a reason to look harder, not necessarily to walk away. Price is the obvious effect: a Cat S or N car should cost clearly less than an equivalent car with clean history, and it will be worth less again when you come to sell.

1. See the repair evidence: photographs before and after, and receipts from whoever did the work.
2. Get an independent inspection from someone who knows the model, focused on the repaired area.
3. Check the write-off marker yourself rather than taking the seller's word, since it appears in a full vehicle history check.
4. Be honest with yourself about resale, because the next buyer will do exactly what you are doing now.

The MOT history sits alongside the write-off record and is worth reading in the same sitting; our guide to what an MOT history tells you explains how. If you are working through a viewing, the used-car checklist keeps the rest in order.