Inflated cost of motor claims: interesting article

So what would happen it it turned out you could have afforded it - do you get asked that upfront?

Presumably like for like still appears on the total claim though.

I was hit in the rear at a set of traffic lights in March '23 and it was painful to deal with it.

My insurer (Esure at the time, dumped them at the next renewal) refused to deal with the claim at all, instead insisting I used Enterprise Claims Management to sort it. I got a hire car the next day and was told to wait for the repairers to contact me to get my car assessed. It took 4 weeks for them to do so despite me chasing it up with Enterprise multiple times and they assessed my car the next day. When I got there they couldn't understand why I was a bit annoyed at the delay, as their policy was to assess all vehicles within 48 hours. Turns out Enterprise didn't even contact them until a day before, so 4 weeks of unnecessary hire car charges! My car was deemed fit to drive so I had to give the hire car back until mine went in for repair. All booked in for 3 weeks later and I had a hire car reserved for me at the Enterprise office a 2 minute walk away. Dropped my car off, walked to the hire desk only to be told that A: they had no record of a reservation for me and B: they were so short of cars that there was 3 other customers with reservations waiting for cars to be returned! Phoned the Claims Management side who just shrugged their shoulders then put on a fresh reservation for me, which was useless as there weren't any vehicles available within 30 miles. I ended up having to borrow my mum's car for the week as there was no way I was doing a 90 mile round trip on motorways in my 33 year old Mini! Enterprise did phone me a week later to say there was now a car available for me and when would I like to pick it up but I told them to not bother as I was picking up my repaired car that afternoon. The charge for the hire car for that period still appeared on the final bill too! I ended up lodging a complaint about that cock-up and got £100 as a 'goodwill gesture' which I used to treat my mum to a few things and get her car valeted.

I'm not surprised that costs are going up if that's even half of the stuff that goes on with claims, the total claim cost for me was £11,450 for essentially a bumper replacement and a new towbar on a 10 year old Fabia. The repair part came to £1,200, which was close to having the car written off. I also got £1,400 for lost wages and a series of physio sessions as the impact tweaked my right shoulder, only £600 of which I actually saw after 'fees which didn't include the physio costs. If I strip out the actual costs from it all it totals roughly £3,000, I don't think the Management Co added £9,450 of value to the whole thing at all.

its ridiculous isnt it, but alot of it comes from people saying, well ive paid insurance for a 7 series, so i expect the same as a rental, when a fiat panda would probably be fine for a week or so, im sure thats what used to happen.
yes you might have to put up with a lesser car for a bit, but so what, it still gets you to work etc, stuff happens, sometimes life deals you a bad one, it really doesnt matter.