Insewerants

[kingandy]

After I crashed my car back in November, the nice lady at the insurance place advised that I could check how much the payout was and maybe pay it off, so as to qualify for a "no claims" bonus (though not a "no accidents" one). She agreed that this would only be worth it if if the payout was less than the reduction I'd get from paying it off, obviously. Since the other car was barely scratched, I thought it would be worth ringing up to check ... renewal is due soon, so I gave them a ring today.

Eight hundred pounds. Eight hundred.

I blame big business; the car in question was a courtesy car from a Renault garage, so I don't blame the nice old people driving it, but rather the garage who I'm sure said "Pah! It's on the insurance, we may as well get the whole rear half of the car replaced, why cut corners?"

I think I shall be taking my business elsewhere. The AA offered me a discount on account of being a member, we'll have to see what they can offer me.

Comments

[renniek.livejournal.com]

It will probably be down to the repairing garage.

Generally, on an insurance claim, the insurance company decide which garage is repairing the damaged vehicle. For insurance jobs, because the repairs have to be guaranteed to a high standard and because the garage can get away with doing a lot of expensive work and getting the cash for it without any argument, garages almost always replace anything that is damaged with brand new parts. This is why cars are so often written-off by insurance companies - not because it would actually cost more than the car is worth to get it roadworthy again, but because it would cost more than the car is worth to get anything that's damaged replaced with new parts.

[kingandy]

That's about what I figured. It's really annoying though, looking at the back end of their car post-impact there was only a handful of scratches and a license-plate illumination light hanging out on its wire. They mush have replaced the whole bodywork...