I recently had an accident where I just nundged the car in front of us at a roundabout, they decided to start and then stopped. The damage was very slight, a couple of slight scratches that did not penetrate the undercoat, I would have had it done for £40 by my own chaps.

The bill LAV accepted, and paid, althought they had a photo of the very slight damage was £945.50.

This is my letter to LAV. How many times are we motorist to be exploited like this?

I have since asked for a copy of the bill to see how on earth they can warrant this charge.

Would value advice on how to act now.

re Claim 289325

Dear....
this is an outrageous bill for this damage (945.50.) I owned S & S Autos in E15 for several years and Swiss autos in E11 for 8 years, and have been in the motor business for 30 years.

I had my own repair shop, and during this time repaired innumerable cars that were damaged.

Many times I have had to decline work on the basis that I could not get a profit from the estimated damage cost suggested by the assessor of the insurance company, who invariably attended to asses the damage, which, unfortunately, does not seem to happen now
There was NO damage to the body, as seen in the photo, it merely needed rubbing down and repainting.
Any competent engineer would agree that this is a terribly inflated price for the damage shown in the picture I supplied to you

I refute most strongle your engineers report, and his expertise, I offered to pay for the damnage, which was reclined, and estimated it would cost less than £100 (far less if I were still in business.

This seems to be the norm today for insurance companies to accept astronomical bills, pay them, and inflate the policy holders premium in the preceding renewal policy.

Needless to say I am very upset about this whole affair,

Edited by Avant on 29/01/2016 at 20:56