be emphatic about this point in your statement to your insurers.
Wel lets hope your insurance company is NOT churchill insurance
My wife had an RTA in her Coupe, this guy pulled half onto pavement and stopped, my wife came up behind slowed, indicated to pass as she was passing he pulled out to do a U turn on the main road and smashed right into her passenger wing bending it completly and denting the door, even the guys wife said to the her husband I told you this sat nav would cause an accident, apparantly it had told him to turn around, so he did, obviously his fault, for it to be my wifes she would have had to hit him, so her nose would have been damaged not the side of her car.
Churchill had 4 statments, and 4 lots of images of the scene sent to them, lost every one of them, spoke to them constantly on the phone and got no were, then after about 9 months all went quiet from them, so we rang again to find out what was going on to be told they had settled the claim for the other party and we where at blame, how? my wife asked, thier reply was"well you did not send us any statments or images to back up the claim"!!! you can imagine what her reply was to them, then not a week later my wife gets a county court letter through the letter box from the other side solicitor, claiming repair to the vehicle and hire car charges, with a court date, churchill said ignor it they always send these out. but my wife rang thier solicitor who sent the letter, who told her if you do you will be hit with all the charges, we have tried to get payment from churchill who amazingly agreed it was your fault but to date have not paid or responded to our letters since, that was over a MONTH ago, by talking to the other side solicitor we got the court date cancelled and made churchill payup, we complained to churchill and eventually (12 months) got our Excess back £350 and another whole £50 in compensation for thier incompitance, WOW!
All I can say is watch your insurance company carefully and make sure they do thier job, bear in mind also you DO NOT have to take it to thier designated bodyshop, the job they did on my wife car smacked of child with spray can, they will try and talk you out of it, scare you with the "extra cost to YOU" line, no loan car but most good bodyshops will give you one anyway, they get a cheap deal in thier "designated" shops so they will try alsorts of tactics to keep you there, if you know it is a bad one stand tall and don't let them push you around, the hasel is worth it, it took us months of arguments with churchill to get my wifes car sorted out to a half decent standard, eventually I paid for it myself at another spray shop to get the colour to match and the runs removed, I also ended up paying for the wheel trim which the old spray shop lost, so they took the driver rear off and put it on the passenger front, well as we all know you onlt have to look at the rear of a wheel trim to know which end it came off, especially where the vehicle in question has rear DRUM brakes, so watch them, they take your cash quick enough, this is now thier end of the deal so make em keep to it.
