Egg, meet chicken

[stephbg]

Insurance company: "You can't submit a claim until you have a quote for repairs"
Panelbeater: "We can't give you a quote without a claim number"

Comments

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Wow. My lot was much easier. I did the claim over the phone... Filled in one form for accident report, I think there was another one but it might have been to do with getting a claim number in case of injury. Took car to approved assessor (admittedly 10 days later was first slot) They took car to repair people.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

My first thought was "archaic" when I saw your post about needing a quote. Last couple of times I've had to have my car repaired, all I had to do was phone insurance company, give them a few details, get claim number, take car to any repairer I like and they'd work it all out.

Actually, last time was even without having to make the phone call. The guy who'd run into me was with the same insurance company and after he rang them, they rang me and asked if I'd like to make a claim!

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I'm not au fait with how insurance works, but what's with withholding a quote if there's no claim number? What if you're paying yourself, and getting a quote to see how much it will be?

If they're planning to give different quotes depending on who's doing the paying, there's a problem.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

That would indeed be dodgy. More likely, they don't want to waste their time (and it can be a non-trivial process) make a huge quote that they don't know you're going to use. They've got sick of people going and getting 10 quotes and wasting (almost) everyone's time. In Melbourne, they'll charge you for a quote unless they know you're going to go through with the work.