My insurance paid out £1400 for a small scratch. Does a small scratch cost this ?

fred246

Not been to car bodywork place for years but when I used to they always did 2 types of quote. One was for if an insurance company was paying. The other was cheaper if you were paying yourself. Scratches don't affect the ability of a car to function as a car so I often just leave them. If you are having them fixed you have to have it done intelligently. I'd rather have a less than perfect job than have my car ripped apart.

fred246

Do you remember the thread about someone who had a trampoline land on their car and dinged the roof? Rather than have it lifted up they were insisting on a new car roof. Crazy.

AdrianC

fred246 said:

Not been to car bodywork place for years

Of course not. You DIY. There's videos, an' everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4vusY2-rkQ

treeroy

Bodywork is easily the most expensive element of a car to repair and maintain. Can costs hundreds, thousands, to professionally fix very minor damage, simply because it is so labour intensive and involves precision in the way that a lot of mechanical repairs don't.

A lot of the time its just not worth doing, particularly when cosmetic damage is just that, cosmetic, and has no actual negative effect on the car. Have to say I wouldn't personally have gone through insurance for a small scratch like that... especially on a cheap car like hyundai i10

DoaM

Did you have a hire car via a credit hire agreement while your car was off the road being repaired? That will have massively inflated the claim.

Mistral001

I wonder if the garage will get insurance work ever again from that insurer. 

Aretnap

Mistral001 said:

I wonder if the garage will get insurance work ever again from that insurer. 

If it's a third party claim, the insurer gets no say in where the third party has their repairs done. 

jimbo6977

Bit of a tricky panel, narrow (would need new paint blending into panels either side), curved (more difficult to reshape), not good access behind.

£1400 seems like a lot of money, but if it had been £600 or £1000 instead, you premium would have been affected in exactly the same way. 

[Deleted User]

Remember you can add your increased premium to the cost of the claim. You are not supposed to be out of pocket.

Mercdriver

[DELETED USER] said:

Remember you can add your increased premium to the cost of the claim. You are not supposed to be out of pocket.

The OP reads like this is an at fault claim.  So I doubt that will succeed, if so.