Body Repairs, Insurance and Your Excess
You chose an exceptional vehicle when you decided to buy your car from the Chelmsford Carriage Company. Did your insurance company make that decision for you? Of course not. But they want to tell you where to get it fixed, if you’re ever in an accident.
You have the right to choose where you get body damage to your car repaired, so choose the best, Chelmsford Carriage Companies VBRA (Vehicle Builders And Repairers Assosiation) approved accident repair centre.
As a Chelmsford Carriage Company customer you will receive the following benefits:
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£100 Off Your Insurance Excess.
- Free courtesy car for the duration of the repair.
- Free collection and delivery.
- Courtesy clean (inside and out).
- Only one estimate required.
- Our workmanship guaranteed for the lifetime of your ownership.
- Assurance that your vehicle is in the safe hands of a local established company.
- We can be authorised to carry out repairs at your request and deal direct with your insurance company on your behalf.
You will normally need to make just one telephone call to your insurance company to obtain a claim reference number and nominate the Chelmsford Carriage Company Accident Repair Centre to carry out the work.
This is How Your Insurance Company Makes Bigger Profits
This is the way the insurance industry works. 86% of all accident repairs are paid for by the insurance companies and all insurance companies have approved repairers. Insurance is a very competitive business – witness your own efforts to save money with your premium – and, clearly, it's in the interests of the insurance company to retain as much of their income as possible.
That same insurance company might be the sole source of income to their 'approved repairer', putting the repairing body centre in the difficult position of having to run faster and faster on the treadmill to maintain the margins necessary to keep the insurers happy.
Many insurers have in-house engineers in the larger suppliers whose sole purpose in life is to keep the cost of the repair down. They, the insurers, might supply cut price parts, many of them 'pattern' (not made by the vehicle manufacturer). They even supply paint. Then they ask for a 10% discount on the final invoice. Cut down to wafer thin margins, there's a real possibility that a repair goes through the workshop on a bonus driven basis, with the technician paid in relation to chargeable hours, rather than those actually worked.
In other words, there's a menu of charges and that's what they're charged out at, however quickly the job is completed. It's a natural instinct, and in the interests of technicians and bodyshop alike, to work faster achieving more profit per hour. But do pressures such as these equate to a quality repair process?
From the customer point of view, life seems to have become so much easier. Gone is the hassle of filling in a complex form unaided. Now you 'simply' ring the call centre and they do it all for you. However, the chances are that the call centre staff are tasked with, and possibly incentivised on, getting the repair into an approved facility.
Note the sharp intake of breath when you admit to already having the vehicle picked up by your own favoured repairer – someone, incidentally, with whom you might have a long standing relationship with, built largely on their service record, helpful attitude and proven ability to get the job done. But if the vehicle is still sitting there waiting to be repaired or recovered, you might find it hard to resist the sell. So what to do?
Just Call Us First
Easy. Call us first, before you call the insurers. We'll pick up your car and put you in a courtesy car. When you report the accident, simply give the insurer details of the incident and inform them the car is with the Chelmsford Carriage Company. Then let us deal with them directly.
How Can We Do This?
We work for all insurance companies daily but none of them are volume suppliers to us and whilst asked for discounts, we don't give them to insurers. We are therefore under no pressure to maintain margins and we don't have a cost conscious insurer standing over us, so we can take the time required to do the job properly. A poor repair can often take over three years to show signs to the untrained consumer eye – usually outside the standard three year warranty period. Chelmsford Carriage Company guarantees the repair for life. No quibbles.
£100 Off Your Insurance Excess
We will also give you £100 towards your insurance excess. So a £1000 repair, with an excess of £250 on your policy, will only cost you £150.
Your insurance company does not have the right to tell you where to take your vehicle for body repairs, if they try to tell you where to take your car, tell them you know you have made the right choice, so you’re taking your car to the Chelmsford Carriage Company.
For more details give us a call on 01245 475100 / 07825 374750
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