How to Get Your Vehicle Repaired Under Insurance
At Fleet Works, it is our objective to make the inconvenience of an accident as easy as possible for you. We find that many people are not familiar with the process, and make things more complicated than they need to be. All that you need to do is contact your insurance company, and then contact us with the information that your insurance company has provided you. We will handle everything from there.
The Insurance Repair Process:
- Contact your insurance provider and make a claim. They will provide you with a claim number and contact information of the person who will be handling your claim.
- Contact us with the claim information and we will advise you on the best way to proceed with the repairs.
- Your insurance company may try to convince you to take your vehicle into one of their "preferred" facilities, which is a benefit to them, but not always a benefit to you. Insurance companies set up direct repair programs with shops that include discounts, kick backs, and other cost cutting measures that eventually result in costs savings on their behalf that will reflect in the repair of your vehicle. Insurance companies will force their "preferred" shops to charge less, which forces the shop to cut corners on repairs just to save your insurance company money.
- Some insurance companies imply that they will warranty your repairs and that with any shop other than one of their "preferred" shops, you are left on your own. Insurance companies do not warranty repairs, the shop where you have the repairs done will warranty the repairs.
- As the owner of the vehicle, it is your choice of where to have your vehicle repaired.
- At Fleet Works, we work on your behalf to get your vehicle repaired properly. We work with your insurance company, to make sure this happens. We do not make concessions with insurance companies in exchange for referrals. We fully stand behind our workmanship and any parts or materials that we use for repairs have warranties from their respective manufacturers.
- We will do an assessment of the damages and work with your insurance company in determining what repairs are needed.
- Insurance companies do not require you to get an estimate and they will never require you to get multiple estimates. Insurance companies use damage appraisers to inspect the damages, determine the related costs to repair the damages, and verify that the repairs were done, if needed. This is why getting estimates for an insurance claim is unnecessary, as your insurance company does their own assessment of the damages.
- Insurance companies need documentation of any damages before they will pay to have them repaired. Insurance companies pay the local competitive labor rates and have procedures in place to ensure that they are only paying for the incident related damages and not just anything that someone puts on an estimate or work order.
- Your insurance company will provide approval for the repairs and we will schedule your vehicle accordingly.
- Once repairs are completed, you may be responsible for a deductible (as determined by your insurance coverage) and GST (if the vehicle belongs to a GST registered person or business). These are to be paid to the repair facility upon completion of the repairs, and in most cases will need to be paid before your vehicle is returned to you. You pay your deductible and/or GST to the repair facility, and your insurance company pays the remaining of the repair costs to the repair facility. You do not pay your deductible or GST directly to your insurance company.