Advice on Chipped windscreen

mikey72

Glassman wrote: »

You raise an interesting and valid point. I would say if the eventualities of what these probable outcomes are were questioned at POS, the broker or insurer would - or should - make the situaion clear. However, not many people do ask; of those that do, some are told to either call the 'help line' or, to call the issuer of the policy so that they can advise from that point on.

I always buy mine online, and I'm not going to say if I ever read the t&c's before I tick the box that says
"confirm you have read and accepted the t&c's"
but I've never had a screen that lets you carry on if you don't tick it.
I don't think unfair contract would apply, if they repair the car back to original condition, that's what you've paid for.

mikey72

Remembered two of them.

Swiftcover

"We may choose to repair your car with recycled parts, where appropriate. Parts used may not have been made by the car's manufacturer but will be of a similar standard. If any lost or damaged parts are no longer available, we will pay an amount equal to the cost shown in the manufacturer's latest price guide, together with reasonable fitting costs.
If your car is damaged, we will use one of our recommended repairers to repair it. If you choose not to use them, we may not pay more than our recommended repairers would have charged and we may choose to settle the claim by a financial payment. "

and

"you do not use our approved windscreen repairer, the most we will pay for any windscreen replacement claim under this section is £100 or £50 for any windscreen repair. "

(their highlighting)

Tesco value have a clause about non oe parts as well, for cars over three years old. That rules out most dealers for repairs.

"At our own option we may repair, reinstate or replace your car or any part thereof or its accessories or may pay the amount of the loss or damage. If your car is three years old or more, or if you have an imported car, we may decide to repair it with parts which may not been made by your car's manufacturer but which are of a similar standard."

dacouch

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

And playing the opposing devils advocate;

Who has a policy stating they HAVE to go with the insurers appointed rep????

The policies will generally say in their guides to how to make certain claims something along the lines of "You must telephone our Claims Helpline before any work is carried out. We will direct you to an approved repairer" (From Aviva policy).

Most will have a very low amount of cover and / or an increased excess if you don't use their approved repairers.

If you want I can bore you with the original reasons why Insurers brought these in

cyclonebri1

dacouch wrote: »

The policies will generally say in their guides to how to make certain claims something along the lines of "You must telephone our Claims Helpline before any work is carried out. We will direct you to an approved repairer" (From Aviva policy).

Most will have a very low amount of cover and / or an increased excess if you don't use their approved repairers.

If you want I can bore you with the original reasons why Insurers brought these in

Which is where I came into this discussion;):T

cyclonebri1

mikey72 wrote: »

Remembered two of them.

Swiftcover

"We may choose to repair your car with recycled parts, where appropriate. Parts used may not have been made by the car's manufacturer but will be of a similar standard. If any lost or damaged parts are no longer available, we will pay an amount equal to the cost shown in the manufacturer's latest price guide, together with reasonable fitting costs.
If your car is damaged, we will use one of our recommended repairers to repair it. If you choose not to use them, we may not pay more than our recommended repairers would have charged and we may choose to settle the claim by a financial payment. "

and

"you do not use our approved windscreen repairer, the most we will pay for any windscreen replacement claim under this section is £100 or £50 for any windscreen repair. "

(their highlighting)

Tesco value have a clause about non oe parts as well, for cars over three years old. That rules out most dealers for repairs.

"At our own option we may repair, reinstate or replace your car or any part thereof or its accessories or may pay the amount of the loss or damage. If your car is three years old or more, or if you have an imported car, we may decide to repair it with parts which may not been made by your car's manufacturer but which are of a similar standard."

Which states that you do not have to use their recomended repairer????, but if you don't they will cap the loss????

So this does not mean you have to use them.

Sorry Mikey not having a go at you but I would have a real issue with anyone telling who should repair my car :mad:

mikey72

If you want to use the dealer you can, but swiftcover state they may only pay the same amount as their repairers would charge using using second hand parts, so I reckon a main dealer would be hard pushed to compete. Unless you pay the difference.
Tesco value price with non oe parts as well.
Cheap insurance is cheap for a reason.

They're not all the same, we had a claim through Sainsburys not too long ago, door panel damage, they preferred us to use their approved repairer, we wanted a main dealer, they agreed, but wanted two quotes, which was fair enough, then they wanted our preferred quote broken down, and about three weeks later they ok'd it, and paid directly.
So, no real problems with it, just a bit of delay that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't used the dealer.

Pays your money and takes your choice.

Glassman

dacouch wrote: »

If you want I can bore you with the original reasons why Insurers brought these in

Please do; I'm interested.

:beer:

dacouch

Glassman wrote: »

Please do; I'm interested.

:beer:

It was brought in late 80's early 90's when having a sunroof on your car was really desirable. A lot of the sunroof fitting centres (Who normally also fitted windscreens) would suggest to potential clients that they would fit a sun roof and give them an invoice for a windscreen so they could claim it back from their insurers under the windscreen cover. Back then (As is now days with most companies) a windscreen claim did not affect your no claims bonus and you also did not have an excess to pay. So you could get a nice shiny sunroof paid for by your car insurer.

This is why they originally brought in the approved windscreen companies and limited the amount you could claim if you did not use an approved supplier.

I don't like Autoglass as they are expensive and always take ages to come out and fit or strangely can only come out to fit out of offices hours when they can charge more. Insurers will tell you now days they prefer having one supplier as they get massive discounts, have a period of credit before they have to pay the bill, more accountability eg one big supplier is less likely to do assist dodgy claims as they don't want to lose a big account and a lot of the insurers actually farm their entire windscreen helpline out to the windscreen supplier so when you ring say Aviva's windscreen claim line it will go through to Autowindscreens (Might have changed recently) who pay the running costs of the call centre. Obviously having one large bill to pay each month uses less staff than issuing lots of cheques to other suppliers.

The above are why they prefer authorised suppliers.

I had a garage who had damaged a Lotus windscreen and did not want to use Autoglass as their staff were "Trained monkeys" who could not properly fit a lotus windscreen which apparantly is very specialist. They had sourced a quote from National who had the item in stock and could fit that day. Autoglass had to order it in and could not fit for a week which was not good for the garage who wanted to give the car back in an undamaged condition. The national quote was 60% cheaper but the Insurer would not budge as they wanted to use their authorised supplier and that the ultimate price they paid would be less than Nationals.

If your looking for business, you could try what Highway used to do with us, they went around local brokers and fleet managers and gave them a voucher or each windscreen order we refered to them. They had direct billing with lots of companies so there was no policy limit, when we sent the order through they checked if they had a direct billing and if they did they took the order, if not and it was not under the insurers limit eg £100 they passed it onto the insurers supplier. They knew their prices were less than Autoglass so wanted the business and also to get their prices into the Insurers systems so they could ultimately pitch to become an authorised supplier

Glassman

dacouch wrote:

It was brought in late 80's early 90's when having a sunroof on your car was really desirable. A lot of the sunroof fitting centres (Who normally also fitted windscreens) would suggest to potential clients that they would fit a sun roof and give them an invoice for a windscreen so they could claim it back from their insurers under the windscreen cover. Back then (As is now days with most companies) a windscreen claim did not affect your no claims bonus and you also did not have an excess to pay. So you could get a nice shiny sunroof paid for by your car insurer.

Interesting and tbh, never heard this before.

dacouch wrote:

This is why they originally brought in the approved windscreen companies and limited the amount you could claim if you did not use an approved supplier.

Agree to a point, but I think it's leaning more towards business and contracts these days. Many tenders are won, not for national coverage, but for the offer of average invoice pricing. This may explain the suggested reason why there is a capping on glass claims. What it can also mean, is that a company can up their repair average by repairing more than they replace (to be green and... efficient and... proactive in the way they save the insurer and their clients money). So when an invoice of £1200 for replacing a heated windscreen turns up, it will not amount to much because the previous 400 invoices were all at £80.00 each, therefore bringing the average to an easily digestible denominator.

dacouch wrote:

I don't like Autoglass as they are expensive and always take ages to come out and fit or strangely can only come out to fit out of offices hours when they can charge more. Insurers will tell you now days they prefer having one supplier as they get massive discounts, have a period of credit before they have to pay the bill, more accountability eg one big supplier is less likely to do assist dodgy claims as they don't want to lose a big account and a lot of the insurers actually farm their entire windscreen helpline out to the windscreen supplier so when you ring say Aviva's windscreen claim line it will go through to Autowindscreens (Might have changed recently) who pay the running costs of the call centre. Obviously having one large bill to pay each month uses less staff than issuing lots of cheques to other suppliers.

Good summary of what is going on pretty much across the board. There is a gateway for the loosely called, 'non-approved' repairers and this is an invoice price control system whereby any stray jobs (ie, which fall outside the insurer / repairer arrangement, or, the preferred supplier cannot respond to a request in a timely manner) are billed through a facility which:

For the insurer - regulates and standardises the pricing. The 'program' controls and dictates the invoice value.

For the 'non-approved' - whether the pricing is good or not, it does give the smaller company the option to take on insurance work (as long as those insurers are on the program).

The greatest thing about this program is:

a) it is called Supplier Invoice Control Program and

b) it is a sister company to Autoglass (both parented by Belron). Great thing for Belron, of course.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it has leveled a once heavily unbalanced playing field, but there are still some issues which could do with address.

dacouch wrote:

I had a garage who had damaged a Lotus windscreen and did not want to use Autoglass as their staff were "Trained monkeys" who could not properly fit a lotus windscreen which apparantly is very specialist. They had sourced a quote from National who had the item in stock and could fit that day. Autoglass had to order it in and could not fit for a week which was not good for the garage who wanted to give the car back in an undamaged condition. The national quote was 60% cheaper but the Insurer would not budge as they wanted to use their authorised supplier and that the ultimate price they paid would be less than Nationals.

This a very common scenario nowadays. There was the case of a car which had all its windows smashed. When it went in to the preferred supplier, the total cost of replacing all the glass would have rendered the car a total loss. The owner (and policyholder) obviously did not agree, or approve of this. He went away to think about the 'proposal' and happened to inquire with a local independent repairer about how much it would cost to go down that route. To his surprise, the estimate was less than 50% of the preferred repairer's quote to the insurer. The owner deftly called the insurer delighted that he had found a cheaper option and more importantly, his car would not have to be written off.

The insurance company rejected it and did the 'we will only pay £100 towards the cost for non-approved' thing.

In short, they were prepared to pay out for writing off the car than lift the limit and go for a much, much cheaper route which clearly suited all parties. A bizarre stance by the underwriters. No suggestion of the £100 is what the preferred repairer would have charged in this example!

dacouch wrote:

If your looking for business, you could try what Highway used to do with us, they went around local brokers and fleet managers and gave them a voucher or each windscreen order we refered to them. They had direct billing with lots of companies so there was no policy limit, when we sent the order through they checked if they had a direct billing and if they did they took the order, if not and it was not under the insurers limit eg £100 they passed it onto the insurers supplier. They knew their prices were less than Autoglass so wanted the business and also to get their prices into the Insurers systems so they could ultimately pitch to become an authorised supplier

Broker schemes are ok to a point. The trouble is, some brokers get greedy. On the other hand, if Mr Salesman of the competition were to walk in, it becomes a price war all over again. Incentivising and rewarding is one thing, but when it comes to buying the work in this fashion... it just gets silly.

What happened to referring a business for the real reasons: local, reliable, good quality etc?! Oh no, it's all about the money. Silly me.

dacouch

You will find most brokers will not be that bothered in a price war, as long as they are getting a reasonable drink to make it worth their while (As it does make a fair amount more work than just giving out the insurers claims tele). They will go with whoever gives a consistently good service and is easy to use (Having a likeable rep also helps massively).

The sunroof scam does still go on in a massively reduced way although it tends to be tyres or alloys now but is fairly rare.

With regard to your example of the cost of the glass making the car a write off, the person would have been worth accepting the write off (Prob cat d), buying the salvage and then getting the cheaper supplier to fit the windows. They would have had the same car back, new windows and probably made a few hundred quid