My wife got into a not-at-fault accident today. The other driver turned across her path to get into a driveway and she was unable to stop or move out of the way to avoid a collision. Other driver was devastated by his error (older driver) and there has been no dispute regarding which party was at fault. The other driver has comprehensive insurance with Allianz. No tow trucks spontaneously came to the scene (bizarre I know) so my wife contacted a repairer that we had used recently and they towed the car to their workshop. We contacted our insurer (Coles) to get authority to have our car repaired but was advised that our policy did not give us the option of choice of repairer. I was surprised by this, but had recently moved from a different insurer that had allowed this so must have missed it in the PDS. I said I wasn't keen to have the car towed to another repairer as we had previous used this one and they had done a really professional repair. The car is also difficult to move as the front right wheel is locked due to a bent control arm so needs to be dragged onto the truck.
I was unable to pursue it much further as the status of our approval is pending as our policy has only been active for 7 days. They requested written proof of our previous insurance before approving. In fact they wouldn't even approve the hire care option on our policy until this was received. Despite emailing them this we needed to wait for approval from their assessor and it was unclear how long this would take. Because of this we managed to organise a hire car on the other parities insurance as we urgently needed a car to pick up the kids from school today!
Given the other insurer is ultimately going to end up footing the cost of the repairs, is it really that much of an advantage for Coles to pursue repair with their preferred repairer? My understanding is they are able to squeeze lower costs from their guys but don't have any direct financial relationship whith them where Coles would get a slice of the repair fees. I have offered to upgrade both car insurance policies that I hold with them to their "Plus" options as a sign of good faith but likewise have advised I will be taking my car and home policies elsewhere once the car is repaired if they aren't willing to compromise on this.
Is there anything else I can do?
Panel shops have a lot of contact with insurers so ask yours if they could speak with Allianz and see if they can get an ok?
I would not bother trying to push coles on the matter… :-(
Our local panel shop said that Allianz was one of the better ones he deals with.. (then he said they were all dodgy LOL).