Insurer fails to tell customer they’re not covered if they use their own garage

Motor Insurance

Julie complains after the garage she'd chosen to carry out repairs caused more damage.

What happened

Julie told us that she’d agreed with her insurer to get her repairs done at a garage of her choice. Unfortunately her garage caused further damage and Julie’s insurer refused to help. They said they’d told Julie she wouldn’t be covered if she went to a non-approved garage.

Julie felt this was unfair and raised a complaint to her insurer. The insurer said in its final response that they won’t be providing further help. Unhappy with the outcome, she contacted us to investigate. 

What we said

We asked the insurer for evidence they’d told Julie about this but they didn’t have any. There were no phone recordings and their notes simply said ‘Customer to use own garage. Will send invoice’. We didn’t think the insurer had done enough to make Julie aware that she wouldn’t be covered.

We also thought Julie would have used the insurer’s garage if she’d known the insurer wouldn’t be responsible for anything that went wrong. So, we told the insurer to pay for the further repairs.