Claiming back excess on insurance repair

sebloak

My car was involved in a minor shunt in a carpark during april with someone on Motability, I was not in the car at the time but the other driver backed into it, leaving a large dent there were several witnesses and driver stayed on scene.  The driver admitted liability to his insurance. Now that repair shops are opening up again i got the call to have my car collected for repair, but they have said i have to pay the excess for the repair when its completed. I always thought the other driver had to pay this and not the not at fault driver, so can i claim it back? and if so how would i go about it?

rs65

sebloak said:

I always thought the other driver had to pay this and not the not at fault driver, so can i claim it back? and if so how would i go about it?

You pay it in the first instance and the other drivers insurers will reimburse you.  Send them a letter/email with a copy of the receipt and any other out of pocket expenses incurred.

sebloak

ok thanks.  Paid it by card over the phone as my car was delivered back to me by the repairer, they never sent a reciept so only got whats on my card statement.  So wait and see if the insurer replies to emails although im not hopeful of getting it back now.

jimbo6977

sebloak said:

ok thanks.  Paid it by card over the phone as my car was delivered back to me by the repairer, they never sent a reciept so only got whats on my card statement.  So wait and see if the insurer replies to emails although im not hopeful of getting it back now.

I'd be more optimistic. The other party's insurer would have to be in a pretty obtuse frame of mind not to reimburse you, and given that their staff are likely to be very busy, the last thing they need is to give themselves more work by giving you the runaround over an excess. Paying you gets the file off their desk. Best of luck with it. 

Sandtree

Ideally the garage could email you a receipt for the payment or at a push your insurers provide you with confirmation that you had to pay the excess. Most insurers are more reasonable than people give them credit for and there are various agreements between insurers to trust each others word, in my day in these sorts of circumstances I'd phone your insurers and if they answered promptly and confirmed the excess was paid we'd have reimbursed it to you... unfortunately I wouldn't however sit in a queue waiting to speak to them for 30 minutes as I had my own KPIs to hit - which can be the one problem.