Not GAP insurance as such, just new car replacement if car is written off within 12 months from new. Liability is not an issue as I have dashcam footage of the accident. The small print states a free courtesy car will be provided for the duration of the repair so I am ok unless it is written off in which case I need to find out the situation regarding liability for the courtesy car as you point out. I just get that niggling feeling that there might be some bumps in this ride but I hope to be proved wrong.

I won't go into details at this point, I'll just say that the way things have gone this week does not fill me with confidence. I have a courtesy car at least but mine still sits forlornly in the drive and will be until sometime next week due to a misunderstanding over who was meant to be picking it up. I hope I am wrong but this feels like the beginning of a saga.

Unfortunately getting things sorted quickly is not what claims management is about. The big money spinner is the credit hire. The car will be at least £35 a day and could easily be £50 - £100 a day (or a lot more if your car is a Range Rover and they helpfully provide you with a similar car) and the provider will get paid from the claim on the third party. so if it goes on for a month, the charge could be well into the thousands. If the claim is disputed, your name is on the invoice.

Our last accident was a no fault one to my wife's car. Rather than go through our insurer (they would probably also have passed it to a claims management company) we approached the third party insurer direct who jumped at the chance to sort it out with us directly using our choice of repairer. They know it is a lot less likely to result in a whiplash claim and they can control the hire cost - I agreed to take a Hyundai i20 and I saw the invoice - under £20 a day, and billed to the insurer.

The surprise package was an unexpected cheque for £750 to compensate me for the potential depreciation for the accident damage (new tailgate and bumper/paint)!!

Never heard of that before, who was your insurance company. Seems very strange getting money for something that might never happen and as we know Insurance Companies are not well known for giving away free money.

Car was picked up as promised today so hopefully last week was just a misunderstanding and things will go smoothly from now on.

If your insurers write your car off in Cat whatever they will not be repairing it. You should get the current market value for the car and if you have GAP they will make up the difference.

Some categories require the car be crushed, in other categories parts can be salvaged and some categories allow the car to be put back on the road after repair and inspection but this will not apply to you since the insurers will not repair a write off.

If the car is repaired you do not have to inform a soul nor do you have to tell the buyer when you eventually sell it. Garages will only ask if its been written off and repaired and you need to answer truthfully but this will not affect you. Garages are not bothered about a simple insurance repair. We have never needed to inform them in cases such as the Note that was rear ended and repaired since it was not a write off.

You are overthinking it, just wait for it to be repaired.

Well, my car was finally returned on wednesday after six weeks at the repairers and the (£140 per day!) hire car was picked up. The good news is that the repair work looks excellent and I have no issues with that at all. However, my elation at getting the car back evaporated as soon as I looked inside. The most obvious thing was that the high gloss black areas on the centre console and around the door switches look like they have been ice skated on they are so scratched and they also look like something has been used on them that has attacked the surface. Then on further inspection I find black marks on the seats, scrapes on plastic trim and scuffs on leather. Even the perspex in front of the dials looks like it has been cleaned with something that has marked it. Outside isnt much better with black sticky tyre dressing plastered on the tyres and the paintwork now so badly swirled it looks like it has been scrubbed rather than properly washed

As a result, I was straight on the phone to the accident management company who have raised a customer complaint! They have since contacted me to say that the repairers have denied any responsibility and say they did nothing inside or outside of the car apart from in the area of the repair. This I actually tend to believe as I think they have passed the car to a valeting company who have been responsible for making a 6 month old 900 mile car look like a 6 year old 90,000 mile car.

The accident management company say they take customer complaints very seriously and will thoroughly investigate what has happened. However, I am not very optomistic that this is going to end well for me and I can see me having to cough up to get some remedial work done.

Yes, I received weekly updates to be fair. It seems the hold up was waiting for parts, specifically a new rear door and an exhaust system. When they did a final geometry check they also discovered more work was required which required more parts and thus more waiting.

The car did not go to my local Mazda dealer, it went to an "authorised" Mazda repair shop 75 miles down the road. I am also a Mazda owner of 15 years standing and I can honestly say that the service I have had from my local dealer has been exemplary, I cannot fault them at all. That is why I am going to insist that any remedial work is done by them.

Re car cleaners and valet companies. The state of my car is exactly the reason why I would not go near one of them with a barge pole. I can see why people do, company workhorses, taxis etc, however, I do take some pride in my car and while I am not one of those spending every weekend on their car (each to their own), I do like to keep it in good condition and a careful wash every few weeks does the trick.

Edited by davecooper on 07/05/2021 at 17:56

Exactly. Yes, I would imagine that the cost of replacement trim is quite high which is why I want this corrected at someone elses expense. If no one can be identified with respect to the damage then I think that the accident management company should cough up. They are ultimately responsible for the companies carrying out the repair work and seeing that they have reaped something in the region of £6.5k for hire car charges, I am sure they can afford it. I am not going down without a fight.