Insurance advice needed

[sunrise11]

I need some advice here so any will be appreciated.

I got into an at fault accident and crashed my car in to tree and the passenger side bonnet wing and light got damaged and suspension arm and driveshaft also some ac pipe work. Contacted insurance and they arranged the car to be taken to their own repairer after a few days. The car started and drove without any fault lights. Only thing was the arch was rubbing against wheel.

They came up with an estimate the same day they received it and it came up to £18k which I think is outrageous and naturally the insurance company want to write it off.

I got the damage report from them and took it to another garage to check and they are saying that no way that estimate should be that high and that all the work required can be done for about 60% less than what they have estimated or even lower if using reconditioned parts.

can I request from the insurance company to get a second opinion from another garage ? This is the first time I’ve ever had to deal with car insurance claim so I’m lost more or less right now!

[sunrise11]

Also another thing I’ve noted is on the report they’ve put that it requires both side headlights but only one is damaged, the other one works perfectly and also a new bonnet when the bonnet isn’t even damaged. And these new cost about £2300 each from Audi and the bonnet god knows how much

[P700DEE]

Do you want to keep the car? If not just battle the price up as much as you can. Want to keep, get a quote off another garage, look at second hand parts. Ask your insurers about contract repair. This means they fix their price based on your quote. It goes over , you pay, it goes under they keep the money (although garage can offer extra work within quote if you are lucky) No insurance marker. Alternatively , let them write off the car but buy it back from them and fix it within the funds that they give you. Do you need a hire car whilst yours is being fixed? No , then bargain extra hard as this costs them a fortune.

[Dingu]

If you will want to keep it long term you are probably financially best letting them write it off if you can then buy it back cheaply and repair for 40% of the £18k estimate or or willing to use reconditioned parts.

[e-honda]

60% less than £18k is £7.2k
If the car is worth at least £18k, if you asked for £7.2k as cash in lieu of repair, or maybe even £9k to give yourself a bit of contingency they would bite your hand off.

[Mr Tidy]

The only downside with keeping the car is that your insurer has probably already put a Cat N (or worse still Cat S) marker on it, so it's value will take a bit of a knock.