Car insurance - recovery/uplift costs

jhuk

My car was recently stolen, though thankfully recovered quickly and undamaged. I let Elephant (car insurance provider) know about this straight away, and they set up a claim (on the proviso that I wouldn't necessarily proceed with making it).

What became clear over the following week is that the costs due were:
About £200 for vehicle recovery
And about £400 to change the locks, code a new key fob and have the car given a clean.

Someone at the Elephant claims department clarified the following:
- If I make a claim, I pay my excess (obviously)
- If I pay for costs privately, I don't make a claim, but Elephant would still pay for the vehicle recovery (and storage at the police compound) and give me £100 towards getting the locks changed.

Shortly after the police recovery garage released the car (after forensics had finished with it), Elephant said they'd move it to Just Car Clinic - in doing that, they will have paid the police garage for recovery etc.

And then a slight bombshell tonight: someone different at Elephant told me that they'd give me £100 towards locks, but that it counts as a claim if Elephant stump up recovery costs.

Given I've got 5 years no-claims, I was dead keen on not claiming, esp. if I don't have to pay for recovery and also get a contribution towards replacing the locks. I'll check my policy of course, but I suppose my questions are:

- is it standard for insurers to foot recovery costs without it counting as a claim?
- are they on shaky ground by moving the car to Just Car Clinic, despite me not having agreed to make a claim?
- is there anything at all I can do over the contradictions I've been given? I'm certain I have been told two different things, as I double checked everything I was told.

Many thanks in advance for any help!

InsideInsurance

Police tend to charge £25+ a day to store a vehicle where as many insurers have deals with garages that keep them for free. It is not unusual for the vehicle to be moved immediately because of the high impound costs.

jhuk

Thanks InsideInsurance - makes sense. Was just worried that Elephant were trying to get more money out of me by offering the 'service' of moving it to Just Car Clinic and then landing me with a whopping bill.