The crazy world of car insurance repairs

AdrianC

You're guessing it'll cost £3k instead of £250, and then asking why this craziness is allowed...

Why do insurers sometimes do repairs differently to individual customers? Because they have to stand by the repair. Doing it the cheap way, with a bit of plug and a localised blow-over, may very well look poor in a year's time - and it'd have to be redone. It's probably cheaper to do it properly the first time.

Mercdriver

And likely would have cost less to the other side if you went to the offending party's insurance, as they are more minded to keep expenses down. Do keep an eye out for anything truly crazy as you can end up being responsible for anything unreasonable.

michaels

Mercdriver wrote: »

And likely would have cost less to the other side if you went to the offending party's insurance, as they are more minded to keep expenses down. Do keep an eye out for anything truly crazy as you can end up being responsible for anything unreasonable.

Too late now but how would I have gone about going to the other party's insurance?

wongataa

michaels wrote: »

Too late now but how would I have gone about going to the other party's insurance?

Find out who insures the third party. The third party should tell you this or you can find out from AskMID or even maybe your insurers. Then you contact them directly yourself and ask them to sort out arranging for you car to be fixed. Tell your insurance company you are doing this so you won't be claiming through them.

The benefits are that you won't have to pay any excess and then get it refunded and the cost of the claim is likely to be lower as the third party insurers are likely to want to reduce their costs so won't add on things like hire cars which massively increase costs.

The potential downside is that if there are problems you cannot go through the ombudsman as they are not your insurance company.

michaels

wongataa wrote: »

Find out who insures the third party. The third party should tell you this or you can find out from AskMID or even maybe your insurers. Then you contact them directly yourself and ask them to sort out arranging for you car to be fixed. Tell your insurance company you are doing this so you won't be claiming through them.

The benefits are that you won't have to pay any excess and then get it refunded and the cost of the claim is likely to be lower as the third party insurers are likely to want to reduce their costs so won't add on things like hire cars which massively increase costs.

The potential downside is that if there are problems you cannot go through the ombudsman as they are not your insurance company.

Thanks, wish I had known this before.