Insurance - write offs

My missus’ current car is a 2012 Hyundai IX35 diesel with only 40k miles. It was a cat C when I bought it, and still needed some repair work done when I bought it (dashboard, airbags, windscreen etc). An equivalent car in the same condition that hasn’t been previously damaged would be worth £7-8k, so I’d say mine is worth a solid £5k.

Question for the insurance boffins is - if this was to be written off again in an accident would the insurance pay out the actual market value based on it being in equivalent condition to a non-damaged car? I’ve had cat Cs and Ds before but never something of this value, so never really thought about it before. The insurance company didn’t ask when insuring it (they never do, and I dare say they can see any previous accident history at a glance) so just slightly concerned about what would happen if it was in an accident.

If I remember rightly (it's been a long time since I've done car insurance), I think in the event of a total loss, they will knock off 25%-30% of the market value for being previously recorded as a Cat C.
As with any claim though, they will base that valuation on the trade guides (Parkers, Glass's, etc) rather than what they actually sell for, so be prepared to spend time trawling autotrader, etc to find similar examples (mileage, age, spec, etc) to use as bargaining.
Hope that helps.

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I would always value previous write offs at glasses guide trade value.
or for a 'rule of thumb' add 100k to the mileage if looking for other cars to compare against.

Ok smashing, thanks. Basically you can’t pick one up at all for less than about £4500 with high mileage etc, so with a bit of luck if the worst was to happen I’d get my money back.