Since this site seems to love insurance and car dilemmas I figured I would finally contribute my bit.
I managed to hit a driveway fence and I gave the home owners all my details, but since the damage looked minor I asked them to advise their insurer to send me cost of repairs so I can choose to pay direct instead of going through my insurance if the total was not far from excess. Their insurance was happy to oblige and I got a bunch of documents with the damage bill and a cover letter addressed to me which clearly stated the TOTAL AMOUNT PAYABLE by me to the insurer was a number I'm happy to pay out of pocket.
Strange thing is the remaining documents related to claim addressed to the home owner clearly shows actual total cost of repairs including after-hours cleanup crew was over 5 times what the insurer is asking me to pay. So… what gives? The property has already been repaired so I doubt the larger amount I am seeing is just an estimate.
Could be insurer come back to me later after I paid the initial amount asking me to pay more or is this a quirk in how repairers operate which creates billable repairs without actually making the insurance company pay out more than what I'm paying back to them?