My experience of Insurance companies.

I make my living as a car body repairer and have contracts with all the major Insurance companies. I can confirm they are only interested in one thing and that is profit and driving down there own cost at the expense of the repairer and the customer.

The average labour rate we receive from our insurer contracts is £30 per hour (compare that to what you pay for servicing your car), they demand on average a 15% discount on all genuine parts fitted to your car and where available non genuine parts to be fitted to reduce the cost further (they ask us not to tell the customer).

It is also not widely known that the free courtesy cars you are provided with supposedly by your insurer is actually supplied by the repairer free of charge to that insurer (I run a fleet of 48 courtesy cars and vans at my own expense).

They also actively commit what amounts to fraud in that we are made to estimate and invoice any at fault insurance company at a much higher labour rate (£45 per hour on average), we then have to provide our work provider insurer with a credit note for this additional £15 per hour over our standard rate so they can pocket this money themselves.

Add free valeting, free recovery and storage , collection and delivery and a free 5 year guarantee on our work. It therefore not surprising I have little affection for my insurer partners.

The rant is over !!