Girlfriend had both sides of her car keyed the other day, so she spoke to the insurance company today to arrange repairs.

"You MUST have it repaired at XYZ garage" said the company, now I spoke to her about this before so she was pre warned.

They argued with her for quite some time on this point, until she demanded to speak to the supervisor. Who then continued to tell her she had to use their "recommended" garage.

If I hadn't told her that morning to stand her ground on this matter, they would have bullied her into getting it done at their place.

After a while they did concede and said to gather two quotes and send them in for approval.

Do these companies own the garages they try to push you into? Or must receive quite a healthy kick back at the very least.


Rant over

Hi Cookstar,

In our experience, most Underwriters deal with a hefty number of claims per year and organise approved repairer networks to expedite the way that claims are handled.

When sourcing approved repairers the respective Insurers are looking for certain requirements, which can include a courtesy car being available for the duration of a repair, a guarantee upon the quality of the repair (usually 2-5 years depending upon Insurer), storage of the vehicle or access to technology (Audatex etc) that delivers digital images/recordings of damaged vehicles to the Insurers desktop.

The accounting process is also easier where an approved repairer is used, as they can collectively present costs for all repairs within a month to Insurers.

By putting this option in place, the respective Insurer is trying to pre-agree and pre-negotiate the terms with their appointed garages to simplify the process and save all concerned admin/delays.

Every Insurer that uses approved repairers will appoint and maintain garages as approved repairers based upon both ability and reputation, which will be policed by in house Engineers and customer satisfaction feedback in relation to repairers.

As you have identified, unless you have signed/accepted a contract based upon your having to use an approved repairer.

Most Insurers will allow you the option of selecting a garage of your own choice, which as you identify would involve your obtaining an estimate from your chosen garages.

By opting out of using an approved repairer, most Insurers would appoint an independent qualified motor engineer to manage your claim due to the garage being one that they are not familiar with.

The downside of going for your own repairer is that this can delay the claim by 4-5 days whilst the estimate is approved (ie contact made with garage by engineer) & your vehicle is inspected.

A courtesy car is negotiated to be included and factored into the enhanced labour rate with the approved repairer, but not with your own chosen garage that an Insurer does not already have a relationship with - so unless you can negotiate a courtesy car as part of the deal with your chosen garage this would be forefit.

Finally, the repair guarantee would again have to be negotiated between you and your respective garage as the Insurer would simply be there for the purpose of paying the bill and would not have pre-negotiated any guarantee with the garage.

The Underwriters that we deal with are flexible and whilst the approved repairer is probably their preferred route (due to the above) you can opt for your own repairer and we would help any Greenlight customer with this should the situation arise.

Kind regards

Tony

Thanks for the reply, it makes sense now.:)

long and short of it is (my girlfriend was a claims handler for all the big insurers) is that it will cost the insurance company a lot more to use a garage thats not part of there "network". They will always try and push this and the advisor will get told to make it as difficult for you as possible, they will also get repremanded!

Don't let them try and con you into thinking its in your interests...

Legalised extortion insurance.......I don't know how you boys sleep at night ;) on a very big comfy gold bed prolly lol