I had my first bump in 28 years of motoring yesterday; an elderly gent came out of a side road into my motor. No fault of mine, I hope he is being honest with his insurers.

I’m insured with Hastings Direct. At the end of the call they put me through to Auxillis Limited, apparently a sister company, that I ‘must’ use to organise the repair and a courtesy car.

Is this true? I’m having to read pages and pages of terms and conditions and it looks like I’m creating a contract with Auxillis.

I’ve only claimed on insurance once before, my house insurance vrs a third parties car insurance. One phone call wrapped everything up then – that was for a 3rd parties car crashing into my garden. This time I’m struggling to read pages of legalese and am being pushed into a contract with Auxillis.

Any knowledge out there? Should I just roll with this?

I’m with admiral and they asked me to use auxillis, they said it was used by them for non fault claims, they didn’t make me use them though, but I ended up using them as their authorised repairer was just round the corner so suited me better, and I didn’t have to fork out excess which was good.

It went well car was taken the day of the bump, they sent me a car the next morning, car was repaired quickly no problems at all. Honestly couldn’t fault them despite my initial worries

Went through them last year and it was very easy and painless, although I was very apprehensive with all the paperwork and contracts etc.

I gather Auxillis buy no-fault claims from other insurers, and then deal with the claim/repair. This gets the claim off the books of the insurer and avoids you paying the excess. The downside is you have no choice over the body shop.

Auxillis then repair your car, provide a hire car and when it’s all sorted they effectively send the bill to the other drivers insurance co. As they only buy clear no-fault claims, the expectation is that the claim will be settled by the other party without dispute. However, if the other drivers insurance co refuses to pay it could go to court (this is why the Auxillis contract says you may have to give evidence). Even if ‘you’ lose in court, Auxillis will pay the claim as this is covered by their insurance.

So effectively Auxillis lend you the money (hence the term credit hire) for the repair and hire and then it’s settled afterwards.

I presume they make their money through a kick-back from the body shop, and hire car charges. They were very pushy about me having a hire car, even though i didn;t need one.

In the end I was happy to go with them because it was a clear-cut no fault, I wasn’t trying anything on re injury claims and I could get a lift to work and avoid needing a hire car. I figured the other drivers insurance co was unlikely to dispute a few grand worth of repair.

Avoid them like the plague!

You can’t get out of the contract (use an alternative) if they mess you about and you have little to no recourse.

They employ people to get rid of bad online reviews, the fact they have to do this speaks volumes IMO!

You don’t have to use the recommended service you can choose any you like!

Also used them in 2017 for a non fault claim. Very efficient and helpful.

If the car was reasonably new I would want it repaired by the correct authorised garage. Ie a ford shop if its a ford etc.

Older car I wouldn’t be so bothered

Are these guys not the ones who rack up ridiculous car hire fees that YOU are liable for as they are excessive and often other insurers will not pay their inflated rates?

16% bad reviews on trustpilot
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/auxillis.com?languages=en&stars=1

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/mar/28/car-insurance-and-credit-hire-agencies

Now dealing direct with the at fault parties insurance. They have offered to put the car into a relatively local Volvo approved body shop, which is better than what my own insurance was offering. This matters to me as I keep cars until end of life and I don’t want the ramifications of a poor repair appearing 5 years down the line.

Research into how the insurance market operates makes depressing reading. These companies seem to exist to make a profit from not only the hire cars but also from the repairs. They do the repair as cheaply as possible but charge the at faults insurers the rate for a quality repair. I see the ramifications of this as meaning the innocent person with the repair is unlikely to be back in the position they were in before the accident (car value lessened by either signs of repair being identifiable, or corrosion in later years), and all our premiums are driven up by the inflating of the charge to the liable insurer.

The insurance market is regulated by the FCA, and I will be contacting them to state my views. I love a rant! Allowing third party companies to capitalise on accidents and increase the cost to motorists and insurers doesn’t seem like a healthly functioning market to me.

Thanks for the replies above.

Some further reading

I’m not a massive fan of Auxillis or Hastings. Auxillis refused to take my car to a garage that was approved by the manufacturer. Car was a Lotus so not your usual construction method so I was keen to take it to someone who knew what they were doing. All of their garages were your average railway arches type garage who had no experience in fibreglass repair or a chassis made from boned aluminium (I rung up and asked 5 of the garages).

When I fed this information back to Auxillis they told me I could only use their garages and their garages would give top quality results even though they have zero experience with the materials.

So I went back to Hastings to see if they would help and they again where really not very helpful at all, pushing me towards using Auxillis and giving the impression that I had no other option. I don’t know where I stood legally and what my full rights were but an engineers report said car was not economical to repair and I managed to get a cheque for full value of my car so I decided it was just easier and better to start again with a different car.

Whole experience was pretty crappy from Auxillis and Hastings and I did not renew my insurance with Hastings.

I did not renew my insurance with Hastings.

It’s not just Hastings using Auxillis. Admiral also, maybe others. And the other driver of the at fault vehicle in my incident stated roadside that his insurance was with AA, but I am dealing with Innovation Group now rather than the AA. That said, there seems to be less negative press about Innovation group on the web.

SO can anyone who has been in a no fault claim accident recently let me know if their actual insurer handled the issue from start to finish? Because that is who I will move my insurance to!

Wife was forced down this road when she had a no fault claim. She was Admiral at the time. It was very minor damage so no real risk later on but the whole thing kind of stank of a legalised scam even though it was dealt with pretty efficiently.

Before the other party had decided to use their insurance I got a quote from a very reputable local body shop. For £200 they would fix the bumper scuff from the accident and MOP the paintwork to remove some other small marks not related to the accident.

Auxillus repairer just fixed the scuff and charged £650! We didn’t need a hire car as it was walking distance from my wife’s work and a 1 day repair but God knows what they would have charged for that.

I used to have car insurance with John Lewis and they were very good. Had a no fault claim and as far as I remember I was dealing with John Lewis car insurance representative. This was back in 2013 so things might have changed since then.

I was very happy with them and wished I could’ve stayed but they don’t insure high performance cars so I had to go else where with my current car.