No fault insurance claim is there any drawbacks to choosing your own garage

rustywallet

Someone drove into my parked car, I've only had it a few month's, initially the 3rd party were going to pay outside of the insurance and so I took it for a quote for them (Skoda garage). Now they have told me they have gone through their insurance.

I just called my insurance and I was told I could go through the third parties insurance if I wanted, but I declined. My insurer offered a hire car and they'd take my car away.

So I asked about the place that gave me the quote and was told I can go there if I want to. My question is, Is there any downside to using a garage of my choice and using the garages hire car rather than my insurers? What happens for instance if the 3rd party doesn't pay up?

Thank-you.

facade

If the third party doesn't pay up you will be down your excess (well, actually you will anyway unless you took out the expensive "legal protection" or claim it from the third party yourself) and will have an "at fault" claim on your record, as well as losing NCB.

The only disadvantage of choosing your own garage is you will blame yourself if they prove incapable of doing the simplest of jobs properly, letting your insurer railroad you into whoever will work the cheapest for them means you can hate on your insurer if it goes wrong :)

There is every chance that the Skoda Garage will send it out to the cheapest local bodyshop anyway, better to find a good bodyshop yourself and take it there.

Best to claim through your insurer, then the Garage are working for you and you have people to complain to.

If you get it done by the third party insurer, the Garage work for them not you, and once you sign off on the job, the insurer won't be interested if the car is two different colours under streetlights, goes rusty in a week etc.

(I have a low opinon of bodyshops from experience…..)

daveyjp

When my car was hit by a wagon while parked I had it fixed at the local dealer who supplied the car, but they are family owned small main dealership and have their own bodyshop.

Upside was it was very good value for the wagon owner insurance company as they weren't sent a hugely inflated bill because it was an insurance job. I was surprised at the reasonable cost for the amount of work carried out and three years later no evidence of the repair.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6657119/no-fault-insurance-claim-is-there-any-drawbacks-to-choosing-your-own-garage

Assuming you are claiming from your own insurance then the potential issues of using a garage of your choice rather than their network are:

1. Some insurers charge an additional excess, though this is still recoverable from the third party insurer
2. Any guarantees your insurer gives on the repairs won't apply to your garage
3. Authorisation of the repairs may be slower as most network garages can self authorise modest repairs and the biggest ones will have daily visits from the insurers engineers whereas a visit to yours would need to be specially arranged

Also worth checking if the hire car they are offering is provided under the terms of your policy or if they are proposing to sell pass you to a credit hire provider.

What if the third party insurer doesnt pay? It counts as a fault claim and you can't recover your excess. If its your own garage or network makes no difference to that.

rustywallet

Thanks for your help. I was told by my insurer LV I had no excess to pay, as it was a no fault, but I will check that. I'll also check about the hire car they offer too.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81901643#Comment_81901643

Some insurers do waive the excess in a clear non-fault situation and where you have sufficient of the TPs details for them to be confident in their ability to recover their outlay.

Ectophile

I can see a couple of possible issues:

1. If your preferred garage botches the job, don't expect the insurance company to pay again to fix it. If you went to their recommended repairer, then the insurance company is responsible for the quality of the repair.
2. The insurance company may refuse to pay out in full if your repair, plus hire car costs, is more than their repairer would charge.

EssexExile

Last time I just left everything up to my insurance company, LV. When the repair wasn't to my satisfaction they took it up with their repairer and sorted everything out.

rustywallet

The garage that did the initial quote haven't got back to me. I'm leaning towards going through LV now.

Even though I told LV I'd be using my own garage Enterprise keep ringing, but they are a credit hire aren't they? I'm a bit confused with this.

Also 3rd party insurance just rang me and offered me £300 cash and the repairs and a car…

EssexExile

After my accident LV arranged for Enterprise to give us a hire car, no costs or implications for us. When the repair wasn't quite right they explained that from that point until I was satisfied their repairer would be paying for the hire car.

Having said that, I recently changed my cover to exclude the hire car to save money. Make sure your policy says you get a hire car.

sheramber

If the car is only a few months old check your warranty.

Many years ago when our fairly new Skoda needed accident repairs we insisted it go to a their recommended repairer to ensure our warranty on the bodywork was not affected. It went to a the local VW / Skoda body shop.

Our insurance accepted our reason for not using their recommended repairer.