I had my first car accident recently, and sent the pictures of the car damage to the insurance providers within a couple of days.
Then I went in for the assessment with a Smash repairs company a couple of weeks after the accident. The person there had a look at the car and took multiple pictures of the damage from different angles. I knew I had to pay the excess only, but I talked about how much the repair costs could be considering the bumper was hit from the rear right and there was also serious damage on the curved metal sheet above the bumper / near the wheel arch ( or what I later got to know was known as the quarter panel).
I asked him specifically to make sure that the WHITE metal sheet is finished/ re-touched properly so that there is no noticeable difference between the paint quality.
Everything seemed alright, we looked at the calendars and I said I will see him in 3 weeks time to hand over my car for the repairs.
When I went to this smash repairs guy yesterday to drop in my car, he told me that ….. he believes my car has had a second accident !!!!
He said that the pictures which he had taken on the day of the assessment show only the damage to the bumper, and there was no damage to the quarter panel at the time of the assessment. i showed him the original photos of the damage on my phone but he would not have any of it. Tried to remind him of the conversation we had about the repair costs to the metal part but he did not seem to remember that as well.
I told him that the damage was there originally and I am not sure why that has not been captured in the images he had taken.
I thought it might have been because of the harsh sun-light shining on the white surface making the dent invisible in his pics.
He took a few pictures again and said that he will be informing the assessors from the insurance providers about the "2nd accident" and that those costs would not be covered under this claim. By then I was frustrated at his unprofessional behavior ..
I am not sure if this was a case of extremely rare occasions/ bad-luck experienced by me. I think this might be a dodgy technique which the insurance and repairers join hands in to rip the customer off if in case they have not shared the proof right after the accident (and thus I have added voting options here).
I spoke with the insurance provider's customer service and informed them about the incident, and he said that they have received new report from the repairer.. and based on that the "insurance company's" assessor also believes this was a 2nd accident.
Thankfully, I had an e-mail from right after the accident with pictures to show of as a proof of the extent of original damage. I asked them to refer to the same and decide for themselves.
This morning the assessor from insurance providers gave me a call confirming that I was right.. and the smash repairer's pictures were not showing it maybe because of the sunlight. (Why did the a**hole take the pictures then ??) All the repair costs will now be covered by them. I will not be going to those sh*t repairers again who is not only dishonest and unprofessional but also not competent enough to even take the actual pictures of the damage !
That left me wondering what would have happened had I not sent the pictures right after the incident. They would have taken the words of the smash repairer and I would have been asked to foot the bill. Or else we might have been required to call in the forensic experts to check the timestamp/ authenticity of my pictures.
<TLDR>
So please keep an eye on the photos that the smash repairer is taking at the time of assessment, and ensure that the damage you want repaired is clearly captured in those photos.
This episode has now made me even more skeptical of the repairer's behavior, and I believe that we should also ensure that all those pictures are loaded on to the insurance company's portal in front of you. Because if there was a dent, of which the repairer took the picture but did not upload.. then again he may wash his hands off it and you may be left on your own to get that repaired on your own costs.
Title should read:
"Warning, there are shonky people in every type of business. Avoid them"
or something along those lines
Really didn't need the rant because you encountered 1 bad business.
Were they an affiliated repairer for your insurance company? How did you find out about this smash repairer?