Insurance approved repair vs. finding your own

Hudzy

Hudzy

Hudzy

Associate
Joined
19 Mar 2004
Posts
1,497
Location
Bristol
I've had a bit of a bump on my front bumper and it's looking likely I'll be claiming through insurance. It's a tangerine Focus ST and I'd definitely want to use genuine parts and have the colour be essentially perfect.

I'm almost definitely looking at a new bumper and grille. Unknown damage behind the grille but it looks fine at the moment.

I'm trying to decide whether to let the insurance company use one of their approved repair shops, or book in somewhere I can read reviews of first and get them to handle the claim.

Has anyone got any advice or experience with this?

Part of me worries an insurance approved shop will just be working towards the cheapest repair possible, or might struggle to match the paint.

It would be through Admiral.

EDIT: I guess I'd potentially have more comeback through the insurance approved one if they do a poor job?
 
Last edited:
Ask them who is approved and go from there?

Odds are the local Ford garage will be an approved repair centre, if it's anything like the one near my home town.
 
Just be wary of the possible pitfalls of using your own place, such as a higher excess to pay, no courtesy car, repairs not guaranteed, a limit on costs etc.

You should be able to ask admiral for who their approved repairers are in the area, so you can do some research before hand.

When the landy had a small shunt i sent it back twice due to the color match being poor (in fairness it was a pig of a color to match), via admiral. The 3rd time they nailed it and it was indistinguishable.
 
I went though the same when my E43 got hit by a drunk driver. I spoke to the insurance company and as Kindai says, they said the repair wouldn’t be guaranteed by the insurance company if you didn’t use their approved repairer. Obviously the work would be guaranteed by any repairer but the insurance company guarantees the work for far longer if I recall correctly. Luckily it was sent to a Mercedes approved specialist and the job was spot on. I inspected the car after they repaired it and they did a fantastic job, I couldn’t even tell the car had been driven into.
 
I think I'm leaning towards using the approved repairer, at least if I can find out who it is and it doesn't have horrific reviews.

I just read a page on Admiral's site that claims their approved repairers use genuine parts "where possible" but then all the searching on Google is just countless posts about people getting rubbish work done, cheap third party parts, avoid Admiral, etc.

It's depressing.
 
My insurer (Aviva) let me choose between a number of approved repairers in the area once I submitted a claim.

I put my postcode in and it showed a number of garages and their reviews, allowing me to select the one I wanted to go to, on the date I wanted too.
 
Just going through this , my insurers use DLG repair centre, tbh not that impressed, but would use again as 5 year guarantee and have just sent it back about a month after the first attempt when I noticed a few things. The best I can say is they didn't argue ,collected and delivered the car. I was offered a car each time but didn't need it.
I may just pay to get it tidied up elsewhere.
 
Hudzy said:
I think I'm leaning towards using the approved repairer, at least if I can find out who it is and it doesn't have horrific reviews.

I just read a page on Admiral's site that claims their approved repairers use genuine parts "where possible" but then all the searching on Google is just countless posts about people getting rubbish work done, cheap third party parts, avoid Admiral, etc.

It's depressing.
Click to expand...
Yeah but you only find whingers online tbf.
 
Girlfriends car was hit earlier this year, whilst parked outside our house in the snow. Insured with Admiral. Impact on rear wheel causing the trailing arm to be bent, wheel was shifted forward in the arch, as well as rear bumper damage. They put us through their accident management company (Auxilis) as it was non fault, who sent the car to their "approved repairer". I did read some shocking reviews of said repairer, but as above, I figured you only hear the worst online.

They took the car away, kept it for over a month. Below is a picture of how the car was after the accident, then how it was when they brought it back after "repair". Over a month and somehow, they hadn't fixed the glaringly obvious problem. Didn't exactly inspire confidence. Shenanigans ensued. Long story short, the car was eventually repaired and we insisted on having the repair work double checked by KIA main dealer. How they can can justify having an "approved repairer" on their books who thinks they can return the car with the key problem being obviously unresolved, I don't know. Even now I don't know if they were just incompetent, or thought they could just return the car with the alignment printout saying it was in spec, and hope we wouldn't reject it.

h6h4hnU.jpg

7zyE2x7.jpg

I'm not saying that all approved garages are bad; indeed, when my own car was hit, it was taken to the insurers (Direct Line) approved garage, and the work was flawless. But this whole experience has left us with a bit of a sour taste regarding Admiral. I would just ensure you're absolutely meitciulous about ensuring the work is done to a standard you're happy with.

ETA: I should add that with the approved repairer, you do at least have right to recourse. Our experience was bloody awful but at least we were able to kick up a fuss until it was resolved.
 
Last edited:
Conscript said:
They put us through their accident management company (Auxilis) as it was non fault, who sent the car to their "approved repairer". I did read some shocking reviews of said repairer, but as above, I figured you only hear the worst online.
Click to expand...

I’ve used Auxilis and also other claims management companies before and just told them the body shop I wanted to use. You don’t have to use the one they suggest.
 
dLockers said:
Insurers don't individually vet their body shops, they are part of a network. Most of the approval process is to check they have right balance sheet and accreditations. Nothing to do with Admiral directly... just bad luck..
Click to expand...

The thing is, during all this, we'd been on the phone several times to Auxilis, and during one of those calls regarding the hire car, the agent let slip that every customer he'd dealt with who'd had their car sent to this particular garage network had ended up with a litany of problems. Anecdotal I know, but you'd hope that repeated complaints might be enough to make them reconsider using them. I guess they only care about the bottom line, and that's our fault for choosing the cheapest insurer.

pcfarrar said:
I’ve used Auxilis and also other claims management companies before and just told them the body shop I wanted to use. You don’t have to use the one they suggest.
Click to expand...

At the time, I didn't really have anyone in mind to do the work. We asked about being able to return the car to KIA, and whilst they said we could do that, we wouldn't be able to choose a hire car of the same class, reclaim hire car costs or have any right to recourse in the event of any rectification - and they said that their approved garage would be using genuine parts. So apart from some poor online reviews (which I took with a pinch of salt anyway), I wasn't too worried about the garage they'd nominated, so we didn't really push it. The work looked fairly academic for any competent garage to repair - new bumper/paint, new wheel/tyre, replace whatever suspension bits were bent, align, sorted. So I wasn't particularly worried at first. It was only when the car came back as pictured that we were unhappy, and ended up in an argument where the garage tried to claim that the damage to the suspension "wasn't part of the original claim (?!?!?)", and it became obvious that they were either just shoddy, or trying to get away for claming for parts that hadn't been replaced. But of course, we were obliged to reject the car and let them attempt to resolve it, which they eventually did. It's only with hindsight now that I think I'd be more prudent on where the car went.

To be fair to them - it was only the bent suspension that we had issue with; the paintwork they did was perfect, so if the OP is worried primarily about colour matching, then perhaps this tale of woe isn't even relevant :p
 
Last edited:
Conscript said:
To be fair to them - it was only the bent suspension that we had issue with; the paintwork they did was perfect, so if the OP is worried primarily about colour matching, then perhaps this tale of woe isn't even relevant :p
Click to expand...

Admittedly that is probably my biggest worry. Along with using a genuine part to avoid any misaligned panels, etc.

This would be a fault claim if that makes any difference to this Auxilis company getting involved.
 
Hudzy said:
Admittedly that is probably my biggest worry. Along with using a genuine part to avoid any misaligned panels, etc.

This would be a fault claim if that makes any difference to this Auxilis company getting involved.
Click to expand...

I would just be very meticulous when it comes to accepting the work. If you go with approved, you at least have that line of recourse; if you go to a third party, the your insurer will pay for it when you accept the car back, but any problems after that and you're on your own.
And yes, we were only handed off to Auxilis due to be being a clear non-fault. They were actually no problem to deal with; efficient, responsive, sorted the hire car quickly etc. It was just the garage they sent the car to which caused the problems. As dLockers said though, we were probably just unlucky.

Like I said, had a similar problem several years ago when someone ran into my rear quarter; car was repaired at a Direct Line approved garage and it was pretty much perfect first time (and I'd only owned the car for a couple of months at the time, so I was anxious about the standard of work).
 
Conscript said:
To be fair to them - it was only the bent suspension that we had issue with; the paintwork they did was perfect, so if the OP is worried primarily about colour matching, then perhaps this tale of woe isn't even relevant
Click to expand...
recollecting - that was your earlier thread about garage/management company ignoring appraisers 'straightening the chassis' comment - which seemed a massive screw-up worthy of indepenent ombudsman intervention, to ensure customer not left with a dangerous, or ill-resurrected car - a nuclear failure to my mind
 
jpaul said:
recollecting - that was your earlier thread about garage/management company ignoring appraisers 'straightening the chassis' comment - which seemed a massive screw-up worthy of indepenent ombudsman intervention, to ensure customer not left with a dangerous, or ill-resurrected car - a nuclear failure to my mind
Click to expand...

Yes, I never updated that thread, thinking about it. See spoiler for update rather than derail OPs thread too much.

Initially I was skeptical about their rectifications, because I'd got under the car and couldnt see what had been replaced, and they hadn't listed suspension parts on their invoice...but I looked from the back of the wheel arch. So I'd interpreted the part of the invoice relating to "chassis alignment rig" as that they'd had forcibly straightened something.

We later recieved the assessor's independent report showing that it was just the trailing arm (which is forward of the wheel) which had been replaced...which makes sense as that would affect the wheel position. When I looked more thoroughly from the front of the arch, I could see that it had indeed been replaced with an obviously new part. And the car also went to KIA after the work was done (at our insistence) who checked it over and said they were happy with it. So there was no dodgy chassis straightening or anything in the end. And the car has been fine since...but it was their attempt to return to the car to us so obviously unrectified which set alarm bells ringing, followed by their seeming reluctance to admit it had ever needed fixing in the first place.
 
so why might Auxillis only be involved for non-fault claims - just a slightly different client service, with a temporary car ? but the quality of the fix should be the same ..

from the two examples - they provided a 50% success for managing repairs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom