If you have been involved in some kind of accident on the road, you may have been lucky enough to walk away with very little or no damage yourself. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that your car will have suffered the same fate.
There are three categories that are usually used to describe what state a car is left in after an accident: Write Off, Category Loss and Total Loss. When a vehicle has been in an accident, the owner will generally contact their insurance company, fill out an accident report and get an insurance assessor (either freelance or employed by the company) to inspect the vehicle and assess damage. The assessment takes financial cost into consideration and it will be up to the assessor along with the owner of the vehicle to decide whether it should be repaired or declared a write off - in other words, a total insurance loss. Usually, if it will cost more to repair the vehicle than it would to buy a new one, most owners will not make a claim.
Although it is possible to repair a write off, it is best to check the history when buying a pre-owned car. Previously written off vehicles are put into four different categories: