The national classification system for identifying written-off vehicles is to be expanded on the recommendations of a new report.

Classification ambiguities have caused many heavily damaged vehicles to be labelled repairable. Critics say the existing two-tier system also relies heavily on individual assessors, and has “not maintained pace with advances in vehicle and/or composite construction”.

New criteria proposed in a report completed by Delta V Experts keeps the existing statutory and repairable write-off categories, and adds two further groupings: collectable, or high personal value write-off, and economic write-off.

Stolen and recovered vehicles that have suffered heavy external damage but are structurally intact would be classified as an economic write-off. Any vehicle that can be sold by the insurer back to the insured would be a collectable write-off.

The criteria have not been updated since they were developed by the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority in the mid-1990s.