Stephen James – BMW Accident Support

Wife was driven into in a car park, 3 panels and a rear wheel impacted, photos taken, other party accepting blame but wanting to avoid insurance. Checking the car out it is taxed, MOTd, wife has taken the car for a quote and SJ are saying minimum £5k for the visible damage, maybe more if alignments need fixing.

Feels like we have to go via insurance based on that feedback, third party now considering what they want to do, but Stephen James are now pushing us to use their accident support service, is this just an accident claim mgmt scam for raking in hire car fees or is this legit?

Anyone have any experiences to share?

Thanks

Steve

Just because they don’t want to go through insurance, doesn’t mean you don’t have to either. You’ll have to declare this regardless, so start a claim, give authorisation to deal with the 3rd party and relax knowing that your insurance company are doing what you pay them for.

No idea who Stephen James is/are, but it sounds like you should tell them to sling their hook whilst you get your insurance company to sort it instead

You need to be declaring something of that scale to your insurer regardless, and they will probably have some thoughts about who you should be using for repairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get contacted by the other party’s insurer trying to direct you to their own provider.

If you sign up with this mob and the insurer doesn’t want to play nicely with them, what would the consequences be for making sure that any services you had already used get paid for?

As a side-note, anyone who is ‘pushing’ you to sign up for claims management (which this is) would get a swerve from me.

I’d just go insurance mate and let them sort

In a similar situation I told insurers that I wanted a manufacturer-approved repairer to do the work given there was no suggestion I was at fault. Would highly recommend insisting on this.

Go through your own insurance – 3 panels and a wheel sounds like a fair bit of damage to me – and on a BMW it’s be ££££s!

Stephen James may be legit, but check with your insurer first.

Have had a few no fault dings or worse on our cars – BMW w PCP so keen to get main dealer repair which our insurance was reluctant to provide. BMW recommended their claims people to take care of it instead which they did. Dings were fine, hire car provided for a couple of days. One was nearly written off and we had a hire car for a month while they rebuilt the b-pillar.

It didn’t cost us anything, and tt was hassle free for us as the accident management folks took care of everything, but, having been reading up on some of these providers recently it is shocking how they operate and I am not sure how comfortable I would be using it in future

EDIT: responding to Hutch above, for the big repair the 3rd party insurance did try and get us to use their approved body shop, which didn’t appeal as the insurer was a cheapo one, and we were under no obligation to do that as the driver had admitted full liability. Just passed the insurer to the accident management team to discuss

For more than £1k in damage, you need to contact your own insurance and let them sort it!

Another vote for contacting your own insures. I reversed into a tree and cracked my bumper, the local garage estimated 2k so I just got the insurance to sort it at that price

There’s been posts on here about the claim management companies. I’d be very wary of getting a car through any of them.

Embroiled in the car insurance credit hire scam

Car insurance claims, any tales of woe?

Car insurance claim question

When we used the claim management folks we signed some kind of indemnity saying that we were covered if the 3rd party quibbled about costs. Never had any comeback. I guess you need to find out from the Stephen James lot how they operate and make sure that you have any lose ends sown up before commiting to anything.

Yeah, no.

This is a classic case of letting your insurer/broker do what they get paid to do. So speak to them, tell them what is what, mention Stephen James and leave it with them.

Classic case of trying to wring some money out of your insurers for doing what they’d have done anyway. Insurer arranges repair with Stephen James on your behalf, cost 10k. Stephen James acts on your behalf, repair cost 10k + 5k in admin fees.

And we wonder why our insurance costs are skyrocketing.

TBH though there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t let the BMW garage sort for you if you want, assuming they’re not asking you to sign up front for any costs (which I doubt, in the small print it probably says you’re liable). Up to you.

Should have added, yes we have told our insurance company and they have it all logged, they are waiting for us to tell them if we are going to claim or handle direct. They don’t seem concerned that we are considering handling direct with the third party.

Stephen James is the big ‘official’ chain of BMW garages so using them to handle would mean getting the car sorted by the proper BMW bodyshop.

As its described to us our insurers would not be involves, Stephen James and the third party’s insurance would handle as its an admitted liability claim.

As above, I think with a written  indemnity against liability in the event of quibbling would be enough to satisfy me.

Turn around time and would be quicker and ‘courtesy’ car would be like for like (7 seater) which is needed for my wife’s work as a childminder rather than a runaround with not enough seats otherwise

sounds like you have a large expensive car (7 seat BMW, so I guess X5 or X7 ?) with lots of electronics and things that could go wrong.  I’d be going through my insurance to make sure that everything is assessed and full follow up available on any gremlins that may arise after it’s been repaired.

Should have added, yes we have told our insurance company and they have it all logged, they are waiting for us to tell them if we are going to claim or handle direct. They don’t seem concerned that we are considering handling direct with the third party.

They’ll be fine with however you choose to handle it, as long as they’re informed. But I’m still not seeing the advantage to you of entering into a new contract with a third party company when you’ve already got an established claim route set up.

It’s only a 2 series gran tourer, but your point still stands about potential follow ups.

Will see how we can manage the childminding with only 5 seats and then consider the insurance co direct route

The benefit as I understood things is that the claims company, via the dealer, handle everything with the 3rd party and get paid direct by the third party, and your own insurer is uninvolved so doesn’t have to pay out and then chase the 3rd party for costs. Theoretically keeping your history with your insurer unblemished.

And we wonder why our insurance costs are skyrocketing.

Lots of increasingly expensive components in modern cars, means it doesn’t need much to write a car off. A high-spec X7 wheel and tyre could be £1000* all on its own. An LED headlight unit with whizzy auto sensors, another £1200-1300. Bumper and panels, replaced or repaired and painted, honestly I could see that escalated up to £8-9000

*A fancy forged alloy on a performance BMW can be a couple of K, add on £1000 for a tyre…

Corsas have LED headlights, as do plenty of other relatively low priced cars, £1300 for a replacement headlight unit will easily write off the car once it’s more than six or seven years old, I reckon. As for those panoramic glass roofs on a lot of cars, they’re getting on for £13-1500, something to keep in mind if you’re putting a roof rack on a car with one… 😖

They’ll be fine with however you choose to handle it, as long as they’re informed. But I’m still not seeing the advantage to you of entering into a new contract with a third party company when you’ve already got an established claim route set up.

This, just tell the insurance company you want the car repaired by an authorised dealer in the BMW network.

Theoretically keeping your history with your insurer unblemished.

I don’t think it’ll make any difference. You have to declare the incident whether you sort it through insurance or not, and the insurers are already aware.

As for those panoramic glass roofs on a lot of cars, they’re getting on for £13-1500, something to keep in mind if you’re putting a roof rack on a car with one…

And a few insurers now don’t cover a glass roof with their glass cover. Windscreen, rear window and side windows are fine but the roof is excluded. I know someone who had theirs replaced and had to pay out for it themselves, wasn’t cheap.

Not entirely sure what cover level a courtesy car would come with but for your use case I’d want to be damn sure business use was covered!