Reading all this has highlighted so many of the flaws and incongruities of the moden, essentially unregulated, insurance industry.
It seems that one consequence of the market's obsession with "the lowest possible cost" is that the service providers seek to mitigate their costs and pass them on to anybody. It is fine if you fit the majority model, but not otherwise.
In September 2017 Caroline was involved in a two vehicle RTA in which a motorcyclist "T Boned" the near side of her car as she turned left from a main road. Most importantly, he was unhurt and after pulling the front forks out of the side of her car, walked home. The accident was witnessed by the local PCSO who stopped, made a few enquiries and as there were no injuries, left. It seems that in the UK the Police do not and will not get involved in motor vehicle accidents in which there is no injury.
The car was still driveable, so we took it home.
The next day I reported the accident to the insurer, Aviva ad took the car to the local Mercedes approved body shop.
A few hours later I was contacted by an overtly aggressive "Claims Handler" and criticized for not letting them "do their job".
The rep was unhappy that I'd selected the repairer and I was warned that if the quote was unacceptable I could end up paying part of the cost.
they were unhappy that I had not asked for the vehicle to be recovered and made all sorts of statements about the consequences of driving a "potentially unroadworthy vehicle"
I was told that I should have a courtesy car: I told the person that as we had 3 cars between 2 people this was neither wanted, nor expected. Clearly this was also unwelcome news.
I was asked why the third party had not made a claim: I told them they should ask the other party.
They seemed to be looking to find costs for services that I didn't need that could be applied to the claim and intimidate me into agreeing.
That was the last we saw of the "Claims Handler".
The repairer did the job, about £7k's worth of damage.
the insurer decided that the accident was 50/50, we couldn't be bothered to argue. So we lost a slice of NCD, but the claim was paid in full.
We moved insurers the following year to NFU. They don't use 3rd party claims handlers.
But it wasn't an enjoyable experience.
