Is this the beginning of the end of our van? Part 3

I just re-read part 1&2 to see where I left you off and man it was painful to read. This feels like the longest three weeks of our lives. Technically its less than 0.02% of our life yet it has aged us a good decade. I last wrote about us being in the 6 day wait for their external inspector to come check out our van and assess the damage. During these six days we had to try and prepare ourselves for all possible outcomes.

Up until this point EVERYONE involved was telling us that it was going to be a write off. Either too expensive to fix or unfixable (which just means really really expensive to fix - apparently nothing is actually unfixable). Obviously we are hoping and praying for the miracle outcome that the inspector will come and disagree with everyone and say “no this is economical to fix and not a write off”. However we have to be realistic and prepare ourselves for the possible outcomes.

1. It’s a write off as it's uneconomical to repair

2. It's a write off as it’s structural damage (aka very uneconomical to repair)

Both of these outcomes give us £4k to replace our van and both would take away our home. If it’s only a write off as it’s uneconomical, then we could buy our van back and repair the damage ourselves and the vehicle will always be categorised. If it’s structural then we wouldn’t be able to buy it back or repair with the pay-out as it would be far beyond that. What we didn't initially realise is that “buying it back” isn’t as simple as just keeping your van and taking less of a pay-out, they have to take your van to a salvage yard before paying you out and then you have to go to the salvage yard and arrange buying it back off them. When we realised this we were certain if it came to that we would not be buying back the same van they took. Every insurance person said it, every mechanic said it and even the inspector said it, the salvage yard would strip your van clean and sell you back a shell. I know because it happened to my car, some drug addled person driving on the wrong side of the road broke a red light and slammed into the side of me and wrote off my car, when I went to the salvage yard to collect my belongings from the boot they had already taken my brand new radio from the car, so I highly doubt solar panels and expensive kitchen stuff would remain in place if they took a bloomin car radio.

So from these two options we were being presented with, we either had to strip our van before insurance took it and then buy her back, repair her ourselves and rebuild her again. Option 2 we strip our van to the bone before insurance take her and buy a new van to try and rebuild her into. Both options felt like a fresh version of hell.

This was our reality in the week waiting for the inspector. Thinking about stripping our van, our baby. Removing every screw, prying off the tiles, deconstructing our kitchen, our bed, taking up the floor, taking down the cladding, pulling out the wires, taking out the vents. Thinking about having to do it all so carefully so we could salvage as many materials as possible. We were pricing the stuff we probably couldn’t salvage, thinking about what materials we would realistically need to buy again. Thinking about the other unknowns: Where we would do a deconstruction? Where could we store the inside of our van? Where would we live? How long would this take? Where could we do a rebuild? How could we fund a rebuild? Would we emotionally recover from having to take her apart when we just finished her? Now you can see why we aged a decade with these questions stewing in our mind.

The day of the inspection came, I had asked them to call me when they were on their way so I could make sure we were at the van. We headed to the garage early in the morning and spent the day loving her and making her look her best. She looked amazing, she smelt amazing, she was amazing. We were just hoping and praying we could convince this guy she was worth saving, she wasn't a write off. He called to say he was on his way, I was super friendly, he was too, I felt a glimmer of hope. We had heard so may horror stories about inspectors being pricks with clipboards just wanting to write off everything, however he seemed nice, dear God let him be nice.

Just before he arrives I brew a fresh pot of coffee, we have the sliding door open, we are sitting like a display in a museum “vanlife 2020” we want him to see this van is our home and showcase her in all her glory. He arrives to the garage, I hop out and greet him at our door, “Hi, you’re here to inspect our van?" (Big smiles Keely, be friendly Keely, make him like us Keely) he comes over, we start chatting, I offer him a fresh coffee, he's nice. He seems impressed with our van. The whole time he is doing inspection and assessing our van (I offer to help hold measuring stick for photos) we are letting him know what insurance have been saying to us the throughout the last 2 weeks. He says insurance are idiots who only know how to read a script (no offense to any insurance people out there). After assessing damage he admits its pretty expensive (over £3500) and if he arrived to a normal van it would 100% be a write off, but he can see its worth a lot more than a normal van. So he is going to report back to insurance to repair our baby, our home and advise not to write her off.

We couldn't believe it, after he left I cried from relief, but it wouldn’t feel real until it was all confirmed and all works were carried out and we were driving away in her. There were fears that there may be more issues not originally seen that insurance may write her off after all, so until we have her back to ourselves I would reserve final rejoicing. However, here I am typing this blog a week later in our van... sitting in our fixed van which we have just driven away in, the rejoicing can officially begin. Our miracle had happened, the long shot, the dream, the only positive outcome possible in a list of terrible outcomes. All the crossed fingers, all the positive vibes, all the luck, hopes and prayers sent our way from everybody who was following along what we were experienced all got us to this point. Throughout the entire process I was honest and against all odds and all advice, being vulnerable and honest worked in the end.

So is this the beginning of the end of our van? No, but it's the beginning of the end of our van in London for sure!! Almost losing her put a lot of things into perspective, and I tell you what, this baby deserves more than being chained to the streets of London so we can earn money. She deserves the open road, heck we deserve the open road! Why had we convinced ourselves we needed to save a big wad of money to be able to enjoy vanlife after a 18 months of grafting. What a waste of a year and a half of our life. Now we just need to figure out how we can sustain vanlife on the road when we finally break free of London, so we have lots of brainstorming to do and lots of big life chats (the norm for us). This is definitely the beginning of the end of this chapter of our lives, but man are we excited for what is coming next!