Hail Damage - Car at Bodyshop

GSK_2

Hi All,

I don't remember seeing a thread on here along these lines, so I was hoping someone could help.

My car has been at the bodyshop being repaired under insurance after it was stolen and recovered since 26 April. The repairs have nearly been completed except for one part they were waiting to get coded to the car.

A week last Thursday, while the car was still at the bodyshop, there was a major hail storm that struck my area particularly badly and has damaged lots of property and cars. My car was damaged in the storm by golf ball sized bits of hail. The bonnet, roof and wings are all littered with dents. I haven't done a proper assessment myself but I'd estimate 40 good dents in total.

Who is liable for the repair and what course of action should I take? So far I have asked the garage for an estimate to repair the car, and they have come back with a price of £1330 plus VAT. I have said that I believe that they are liable for the damage as it was under their care. They have said that their insurance won't cover it and that if it was parked in ASDA car park, ASDA wouldn't pay out. I argued that if it was parked in ASDA car park that I would have chosen to park it there, not under cover and therefore be liable, but as the car was in their care, it was not my choice as to where it was parked. They have lowered their amount twice so that I pay £800 and now they are 'offering' £500. The estimate is made up of labour and paint costs.

What should I do?

dacouch

For them to be liable for the costs, you would need to prove they were negligent, this in effect is the actions of a reasonable person could reasonably have avoided the damage.

I would assume that a hail storm was not predicted, if it was it might be feasible for them to have covered the vehicles or bring them inside.

On balance I would say they are not liable as it's one of those things and as they mentioned if the car was not there it would probably have been damaged wherever you had parked it locally.

If you have comprehensive cover it should be covered but it would mean claiming on your policy eg paying an excess, losing no claims if you're not protected and any loading on your premium for claims

Muscle750

You will have to put in a seperate insurance claim for the damage the garage are not liable in any shape or form. If your car was outside your house or actually been used in the storm who would you claim off, The garage im sure has a locked secure compound The garage i work we usually have over 100 cars on site and most of the time 60% are parked outside in the compound
The damage is refered to as "Act of god" I cant work out why you just dont claim on your insurance
Now if the garage had left your car outside with the door off ,Tailgate off and allowed water ingress into vehicle yes they would be liable.
Fortunately where i work we are able to compensate all cars with removed panels into the workshop in dry condtions.
If the roof is badly dented i would put a new roof on it and repair the tops of the wings and a new bonnet
One thing thou i cant work out why the garages estimate is plummeting like a stone plus most garages insurance policies have a very high excess i believe ours is in excess of £10k !!!

GSK_2

Muscle750 wrote: »

You will have to put in a seperate insurance claim for the damage the garage are not liable in any shape or form. If your car was outside your house or actually been used in the storm who would you claim off, The garage im sure has a locked secure compound The garage i work we usually have over 100 cars on site and most of the time 60% are parked outside in the compound
The damage is refered to as "Act of god" I cant work out why you just dont claim on your insurance
Now if the garage had left your car outside with the door off ,Tailgate off and allowed water ingress into vehicle yes they would be liable.
Fortunately where i work we are able to compensate all cars with removed panels into the workshop in dry condtions.
If the roof is badly dented i would put a new roof on it and repair the tops of the wings and a new bonnet
One thing thou i cant work out why the garages estimate is plummeting like a stone plus most garages insurance policies have a very high excess i believe ours is in excess of £10k !!!

Hi, Thanks for your reply. As I explained in my post, if I left my car outside my house, then it would be my choice to have left in uncovered but as it wasn't in my care I couldn't make that choice, therefore they should be liable surely?

I'm not wanting to claim on my own insurance because I haven't had it back from the last insurance claim yet where it was stolen yet I still lost my no claims and will have my premiums loaded for the next 3 years. So paying another excess and losing more no claims because the bodyshop chose not to store my car undercover isn't all that appealing tbh.

geri1965_2

As dacouch says, to be liable you have to prove negligence. Is it negligent to leave a vehicle in your custody and control out in the open? I don't think it is. A hailstorm damaging a vehicle is so rare as to be unforeseeable, in my view.

dacouch

How it works is on the same basis a court of law would apply if you took the garage to court.

They look if the garage was negligent eg they could "reasonably" avoided the damage to your car". If it was not reasonable to prevent the damage to your car then you would lose the case.

When looking at what's reasonable a court would look at whether the hail storm was predictable, if you lived in an area that was hit on a regular basis in say July with hail storms that would damage cars parked outside. Then they may say the garage was liable as the damage was predictable and may be avoidable. If you lived in somewhere eg the UK where Hail storms are relatively rare and especially hail storms that damage cars then the court would normally decide it was not reasonable to foresee this and take measures to prevent damage.

You normally have free legal advice over the phone with your car Insurance, either on the legal cover or the car cover itself, have a look in your policy booklet or if you're in a union they normally give legal advice. Try getting some advice from one of these sources

andy111

How are they going to repair 40 dents for £500 +vat?

sabretoothtigger

Why are you arguing the case. Isnt the insurance company the people conducting the repair and cost of that

dacouch

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Why are you arguing the case. Isnt the insurance company the people conducting the repair and cost of that

They will only pay for the original damage, the hail storm damage is a separate incident that would require a separate claim to be made if the Insurers were to pay

GSK_2

andy111 wrote: »

How are they going to repair 40 dents for £500 +vat?

Presumably they will absorb the rest of the cost because the only actual cost to them will be the paint, the rest will be time.

Muscle750

One other point if your car was damaged on a non working day like a sunday or at night do you expect the garage owners to rush in at 4am and make sure all the cars are undercover even if thats possible. Some workshops you can only get a few cars in yet have a yard holding 40 plus cars.
What car is it ?
Plus your lucky it didnt do the windows as well