Poor car insurance repair work

GaryWilts

Hi all,

My car was rear-ended on the motorway hard shoulder a few months back whilst away 200 miles from home. The car was taken to a local insurance company approved body shop for estimates and repairs.

It took them nearly 6 weeks to get the car back on the road, and to be honest it looked a good job visually.

After the car was collected from them we noticed no sound coming from the inbuilt sat nav or stereo system. I had a quick look at the factory fitted amplifier, which sits in the boot (in the exact area the impact occurred) and found the unit had been crushed in the impact. There is no way they could not have seen the damage when repairing as it had to be removed and refitted during the repair.

I opened a complaint with the insurance company, and have an appointed "claims quality analyst" dealing with this. She has been great so far, and immediately authorised the replacement of the amplifier from a local BMW dealer.

However today, I have noticed that water is now leaking in to the boot from the repairs they made, first time it's rained heavily since I got the car back!

I've contacted my "claims quality analyst" and informed her of this new issue. I have demanded that the car gets a full engineers report from another garage to confirm that all the work has been done correctly - which I suspect is not the case!

Now, my main issues are that:

A> The repairs have been botched, twice (that I have found).

B> If they had priced the job up correctly including the amplifier, then the car may have been written off. Without the amplifier the repair bill was around £4.5k, and the factory amplifier would have added another £900 or so to this. Meaning 5.5k's worth of repairs on a car with a market value of around £7k (if I'm lucky!).

I raised concerns with the insurance company throughout the repair process, over the length of time and lack of confidence with how they were working.

I'm guessing I'm just going to have to sit back and wait for the results of the next inspection, but just wondered if anyone had any comments or other suggestions. It also means more time without my car...

Many thanks, Gary

InsideInsurance

GaryWilts wrote: »

a local insurance company

Who's insurance company is this? Yours? The third parties? A random one?

Whilst I understand the frustration at this point in time it is only 1 botched repair - the fact they didnt repair one item and have not correctly repaired another is two separate issues but part of one repair (evidently BMW didnt look into the general repairs just replacing the amp)

The fact it "should" have been a total loss is fairly irrelevant given the insurers have already paid out. There is the rarely used category E total loss for vehicles that are total lossed post repairs but in all the years I did motor claims I can only remember a single case.

Evidently as it is rectification work then a replacement vehicle should be provided irrespective of if your policy includes a courtesy car or not.

If its your own insurers then you should also lodge it as a formal complaint, if it is the TPI there is little point as you dont have FOS protection

Christopher7

Hi Gary

Who was the insurer and who was the garage?

Never trust insurance companies to select a garage, they only have one agenda, to save themselves money. You won't believe some of the things they do and corners they cut, just to save a few pounds!



I would contact the local BMW dealer and ask who is a BMW approved bodyshop in your area, i would then take it to them for their assessment of the repairs. If it has been repaired correctly other than the tailgate leaking water, it might be easier to let the original repairer rectify their repairs.

InsideInsurance

Christopher7 wrote: »

I would contact the local BMW dealer and ask who is a BMW approved bodyshop in your area, i would then take it to them for their assessment of the repairs. If it has been repaired correctly other than the tailgate leaking water, it might be easier to let the original repairer rectify their repairs.

I did that, though not BMW, turns out the approved garage was the one that had botched the repairs

jamhun

Christopher7 wrote: »

Hi Gary

Who was the insurer and who was the garage?

Never trust insurance companies to select a garage, they only have one agenda, to save themselves money. You won't believe some of the things they do and corners they cut, just to save a few pounds!



QUOTE]
This is the biggest load of rubbish I have read in a long time.
If you are saying this because you have worked in the insurance industry, then you are way out of date.
We have rules and regulations that we have to abide by so that we treat the customer fairly.
Yes, there are mistakes made from time to time and you will very rarely read about the people who are very happy with the way their claim has been processed, but to say that insurance companies will cut corners to save a few bob is totally wrong.

James

Quentin

jamhun wrote: »

Christopher7 wrote: »

Hi Gary

Who was the insurer and who was the garage?

Never trust insurance companies to select a garage, they only have one agenda, to save themselves money. You won't believe some of the things they do and corners they cut, just to save a few pounds!



QUOTE]
This is the biggest load of rubbish I have read in a long time.
If you are saying this because you have worked in the insurance industry, then you are way out of date.
We have rules and regulations that we have to abide by so that we treat the customer fairly.
Yes, there are mistakes made from time to time and you will very rarely read about the people who are very happy with the way their claim has been processed, but to say that insurance companies will cut corners to save a few bob is totally wrong.

James

Insurers do not make it straightforward for us to use our own choice of repairer at all!

In fact they put obstacles in our way (eg extra excess) and never inform claimants it is their right to have repairs done at their own choice of garage.

Hardly "fair" when the claimant is a novice in all this!