Get Specialist Car Insurance If You Need Specialist Repair Services

When buying car insurance policy it is essential to look at what is offered should you have an accident and need to a claim.
After all, you are only insuring the car to have the potential to make a claim should the worst happen and the cover is only as good as the insuring company's claims department.

With the hardening of rates in the UK car insurance market and the recession, price is most peoples consideration when purchasing cover, but one of things you should not overlook is who is going to repair your car if it is damaged in an accident and you need to claim?

This is especially true if you own a non-standard car? Non-standard are cars that don't fall into the mainstream set that the large insurance companies like to cover. Surprisingly a large number of vehicles fall into categories that the majority of mainstream insurance companies do not want to cover!

Such examples that may struggle to obtain motor insurance at reasonable rates are owners of high performance, prestige, expensive, luxury, grey and foreign imports, kit cars and q plated cars, sports cars, convertibles, muscle and modified motors, vintage, veteran, collectors and classic cars.

More importantly if you are the owner, if something happens and you need to make a claim on your policy, it is important that your car gets fixed by specialist professionals, using the correct parts and not cheap substitutes. More often than not these type of car repairs require unique tools that are only available through specialist engineers and motor engineering repair shops that deal with particular models.

So it is most important when comparing car insurance to also compare the services that a car insurer offers in the event of a claim, especially those regarding choice of repairer. Bear in mind that cheap car insurance bought through a car insurance comparison website offers no claims services and it will be up to you to fight your corner in the event of a claim, if you don't agree with what the insurer is offering as recompense.

All specialist car insurers and many insurance companies will offer a choice of repairer - many others will not as they have existing arrangements with so called approved repairers.

Trouble arises when an insurance company insists on employing a particular firm to fix the car against the policyholder's wishes, and it is not uncommon for major disputes to arise at this point.

For example, the insured may have an expensive Italian sports car bought from an exclusive importer and specialist firm of dealers who added a number of accessories and or modifications to the car at the insured's request at the time of sale; the same firm may have performed all the routine servicing since the sale and the insured may genuinely feel that they 'know' his car better than anyone else could, and that only they, in consequence, should be entrusted to carry out the repairs.

If the repair work quoted in an estimate by the specialist firm is substantially higher than that expected from the approved repairer and the car insurance claims department consider that the approved repairers are capable of carrying out the work to the same standard as the specialists , then the only way out of this impasse is usually for the insurance company to suggest that the insured pays the difference!

Clearly then it is very important to understand what you are buying with your policy when it comes to claims and repairs. Specialist car insurance policies always offer unique claims repair services and if you own an unusual, expensive, classic car or performance motor, then it would be sensible to opt for a specialist classic car insurance or performance car insurance policy, that includes these repair services to avoid the above situations. What might look like a cheap policy might turn into fools gold in the event of a claim!

specialist car insurance