Insurance Claim and Work to be Done:Normal Procedure?

[Melissa]

Good morning!

I made some calls to shops in my BMW chapter newsletter to have my car looked at to repair the shingle damage courtesy of Isabel.

I called one shop locally (well, in Chesapeake) that was highly recommended by a guy who runs a shop advertised. They don't do body work and he said this other place is painting his BMW. They also specialize in Mercedes and BMW.

Anyway, State Farm wrote up a claim of approx $700 to repair my damage. The shop says they have to go by that, they can't charge more (and I believe she said less, as well) than what State Farm estimated.

Is this standard procedure? I've never had to deal with an insurance claim before.

Thanks! :)

[SteveM]

A couple years back, one of my cars was damaged by a hit and run accident in a parking lot. I went to several body shops to get estimates. Every single estimate was within $50 of each other. They were all using the same computer program to generate the estimate. (this was in SoCal).

The insurance company didn't write up anything at all; it was all based on body shop estimates (heck, my insurance company never even looked at the car!). The insurance was AAA and all the shops I visited were "AAA approved".

In the end, I chose a shop that came recommended by others.

[Nick M3]

State Farm will only pay that much for that much work. If the body shop finds more damage, they'll have to call an adjuster in and get approval for the additional work.

[GimpyMcFarlan]

I don't believe the shop is forced to use the State Farm estimate, but fighting it might be more trouble than it is worth for them. They could claim that S.F. underestimated the amount of effort is would take to fix as a result of some "hidden" damage, but this typically only happens when there is serious damage done to the car.

As long as the materials the shop uses and their previous workmanship (do they have references?) and warranty is acceptible to you then I would use them.