I have been slightly irritated by the patronising adverts for windscreen repair on TV at the moment. Autoglass have their charming rep repairing the chip with ease with an automatic machine that requires the skill of a chimp and we are led to believe that a when a bit of cold winter weather arrives the little chip will escalate into total windscreen destruction.
This company relies on payouts from insurance companies, ultimately raising our premiums!
try the link yourself - the cost for a chip repair, less than 10mm in the drivers viewing area is £134.34 for both my old Golf and not quite so old MX5.
Who in their right mind would pay this when there are repair kits on ebay for £3, well you apparently if you are one of the 90% who actually think this is free when you get it done through an insurance company. Who do you think pays for these repairs?
I have an old Merc estate worth about £2k and a while back pulled into the car park at Tesco. The chip van (no not that sort) was there and since I had 3 chips in my screen
I asked if these could be done and I pay as I didn’t like the idea as it counting as a claim on my insurance. I have a clean claims record and would like to keep it that way.
No problem he said, £15 a chip. So I helped the wife with the shopping and an hour later payed the man and drove home complete with brownie points.
Can’t argue with charge of £15 a chip - who were the company?
Generally you can claim chip repair off your insurance with no apparent impact on you, so no claims not effected and no charge.
There would be no worry if the insurance company were charged the trade version of £15 for this service but if the cost is nearer to the £134.34 autoglass charge the general public, there can be no surprise if there is an impact on insurance premiums.
Autoglass marketing lead us to believe that 90% of repairs are covered by insurance - it appears to be a thoroughly underhand way of making money to me.
Insurance companies only have themselves to blame if they get ripped off. Last time I had some insurance work done, I found out the company doing the repair were charging £100 + VAT a day to supply me with a replacement Taxi. I offered to take time out for £80 a day, a saving of £40 a day for the insurers on a job which strung out to 16 days. They weren’t interested in saving £640.
I also got a chip repaired in a Tesco car park, also on an other-than-MX-5. That did go through insurance but the way it worked was I paid cash on the day and a few weeks later my insurer sent me a cheque. Was a little over £50 and despite my trepidation the insurer didn’t sting me at renewal.
I’ve previously had a windscreen chip, which wasn’t bad enough to be an MOT problem, sit unrepaired for some months then one cold day split the screen from side to side. I’ve also faced A-pillar rust repairs on an MX-5 a couple of years after a windscreen replacement so avoiding the hidden scratches of a replacement appealed to me too. The final element was that the screen had a film DAB aerial stuck in one corner so avoiding that extra hassle was good too.
The repair wasn’t quite imperceptible when you knew where it was but I soon forgot it was there.
That stuff tends to happen if it’s not your fault so somebody else’s insurance is paying. Especially if the insurer owns or otherwise gets paid by the hire vehicle supplier. They can actually make money, at their competitor’s expense, by making your repair as expensive as possible.
On this occasion I didn’t even inform my insurers. I was hit in a car park and contacted the offenders insurers directly after getting the info from the Met Police. I had a handy witness, so they agreed to pay up after an assessor had taken a look. My offer to take £80 a day instead of the £120 a day hire charge was made directly to the assessor, but he said they couldn’t accept the offer. It was a hire vehicle or nothing.
A claim is a claim and if the insurance companies do not count windscreen repair as a claim this should not be the case.
My no claims bonuses are not protected anyway as I believe you will always pay extra in the event of a claim, protected or not. Given that if windscreen repair is treated as a claim I would lose some no claims. Treatment would at least have to be consistent.
My insurance policy specifically states that windscreen repairs are not classed as claims so would not count against my NCB. Autoglass are the nominated contractor for windscreens and from memory a chip repair costs nothing (or maybe just £10, I’ll have to check).
I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve never had to make an insurance claim. On the one occasion I did have a crash when I lived in Hong Kong, all those involved agreed at the scene how much the damage to each car might cost to repair then exchanged cash. I was the man in the middle of a three car shunt. The guy behind paid me more for the damage to the rear of my car than I had to pay to the guy in front who I hit so I actually came out of the incident quite well. All this was done in full sight of, and encouraged by, the traffic police who really didn’t want to have to fill out all the paperwork so were happy that we sorted things out between us! After that I got the old Chinese mechanic who always serviced the car to sort out the bodywork for me for next to nothing and I was back on the road in a few days. Incidentally, my car at the time was an old Mazda 929 estate and built like a tank. The guy who hit me from behind was in A Honda Accord whose front end completely crumpled and the car was written off. I was able to drive away from the scene.
Sorry, just realised I went a little off topic there. Hopefully Gerryn won’t notice and come and tell me off…