AA car Insurance claim: service centre vs choose your repairer

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › AA car Insurance claim: service centre vs choose your repairer

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#316267 30-Sep-2024 17:27

AA Insurance seem to have a system where by you can take your car to their service centre and they farm out the work to whatever repairer and take care of everything plus you get a lifetime warranty on the repairs but you don't get to choose the repairer.

Alternatively you pick your own repairer from their authorized repairer list and you get whatever warranty the repairer offers.

Just curious if anyone here is with AA for their car insurance used the "service centre" option, how did it go?

Goosey

2829 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#3288379 30-Sep-2024 19:42

The various brands of IAG also do this, it’s called “repair hub”.

each to their own, if you are particular, then go choose your own repairer.

most people just go with whatever is the easiest (loan cars and handy to their base of home/work).

what sort of damage are we talking about?

beware, once you get assessed then Likley parts will need to be ordered….often there’s delays depending on what and where the parts need to come from.

qwertee

709 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3288390 30-Sep-2024 21:13

I am with the AA and I went to their associated repair centre Capital SMART Hornby, Christchurch.

It was a good experience and they always had a courtesy car (with their affiliation with Jucy rentals)
Parked my car, went to reception, signed the paper work, and away I went in the courtesy car (Suzuki swift)

Someone rear ended me when I was stopped at a roundabout, and the repair took a week. I think my car gets collected by a third party repairer from Capital SMART

Cheers.

EDIT Typos corrected

snj

185 posts

Master Geek

#3288393 30-Sep-2024 22:26

Ragnor:

Just curious if anyone here is with AA for their car insurance used the "service centre" option, how did it go?

Must've been late 2020 I got rear ended, they were pretty good at the Rosebank Road (Auckland) centre, think it was around 7-9 days all up (I'd need to dig up stuff to find out for sure, might've been shorter), if you have the rental car policy addon, you basically just drop off, and hop into the rental there and then. I was lucky in that they offered to add it after the fact when I started the claim.

They gave a breakdown of what was done to the car and so forth, so not too bad. I suspect they basically load up the dropped off vehicles onto car movers and take them to the bulk workshops that they have deals with, don't recall much mileage getting put on while it was there.

Since the local panel beater that my parents used to use closed up shop/retired a while back, it was certainly the least hassle for me. My mum had a similar experience with AMI who basically told her to drop off her car at X place when she made a similar claim (turned out to be a big wholesale repairer they have a contract with), guess the advantage there was it didn't need to be moved around once dropped off.

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#3288411 1-Oct-2024 08:03

Depends for me on the car itself. I had a BMW 550 and I refused to use the AA Repair hubs and instead took it to a BMW authorised paint and repair shop (Precision Autowerks on the north shore) where as our older Subaru Legacy RSB from 1997 wasn't worth more than 4K at the time and the repair hub made sense. The main issue with the repair hubs is that they use lowest price so the quality from the repairers can be lacking and you don't have control over who your car is sent to.

vexxxboy

4243 posts

Uber Geek

#3288412 1-Oct-2024 08:13

Dont have a crash in Rotorua there is a 2 month wait to even see a repairer to get it assessed and then fixed

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#3288420 1-Oct-2024 09:09

I have used the 'service centre'. It was easy. We had the loan car option on our insurance, so we dropped the damaged vehicle (it was drivable) to the service centre, swapped in to an AA loan car, and went back to swap back when they were done. Didn't have to worry about finding a repairer who seemed capable, was available, offered loan cars, etc.

So a lot easier from my perspective. The repair standard was good, too. And if it hadn't been, I feel like it'd be easier to argue the point with AA Insurance than Random_Panel_Beater_02.

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#3288436 1-Oct-2024 09:32

Inphinity:

I have used the 'service centre'. It was easy. We had the loan car option on our insurance, so we dropped the damaged vehicle (it was drivable) to the service centre, swapped in to an AA loan car, and went back to swap back when they were done. Didn't have to worry about finding a repairer who seemed capable, was available, offered loan cars, etc.

So a lot easier from my perspective. The repair standard was good, too. And if it hadn't been, I feel like it'd be easier to argue the point with AA Insurance than Random_Panel_Beater_02.

Arguably this is the advantage of the repair hub in that they hold the repair warranty so if a repairer goes out of business, your repair warranty is not impacted as its with AA themselves.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

duckDecoy

896 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3288456 1-Oct-2024 10:07

Ragnor:

AA Insurance seem to have a system where by you can take your car to their service centre and they farm out the work to whatever repairer and take care of everything plus you get a lifetime warranty on the repairs but you don't get to choose the repairer.

Alternatively you pick your own repairer from their authorized repairer list and you get whatever warranty the repairer offers.

Just curious if anyone here is with AA for their car insurance used the "service centre" option, how did it go?

For us badly. We were sent to a repairer that had a TON of terrible reviews online and they certainly lived up to their reputation. The car came back not repaired properly, the door no longer opened because the kiddie lock was stuck on and couldn't be undone, bits of trim were missing (like the bits that cover screws etc), the paint job was not a great match, and not all areas of damage were repaired.

AA sent us back to them to get it fixed up and they said they'd only do it if they could get more money out of AA, who (apparently) refused. Eventually they claimed the door was like that when they got it (errr what?) but they did pop the trim back on, but by trim I mean vandalised 2nd hand bits that didn't match in colour and had gouges etc in them where they had been pried out. We had to get it fixed at our cost elsewhere, and oddly our mechanic found some random bits of god knows what stuffed inside the door itself.

AA's attitude was for US to deal with it at the repairer. We were pretty annoyed that's for sure.

Our 2nd encounter was just a few months ago. The repair itself was fine but what we were told would be a 3 day job stretched out to over 2 weeks, I wonder if the repairer just takes as many jobs as they can. AA was more helpful with this one in ringing them when we repeatedly complained to find out progress, but it didn't seem to change the job dragging out at all.

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3288484 1-Oct-2024 10:36

Interesting thanks for the replies, turns out I didn't add the rental benefit on the policy for the car and they won't let you add it retro actively and use it on a claim so service centre is not an option as I will need a courtesy car.

Car is 2015 Toyota Camry Hybrid Atara S, so nothing too fancy and damage is a classic school holidays scraped passenger side on a deck pole when coming out of a tight driveway.. doh!

I'm central/west Auckland based, looks like New Lynn has a bunch decent authorized repairers.

snj

185 posts

Master Geek

#3288501 1-Oct-2024 11:27

Ragnor:

Interesting thanks for the replies, turns out I didn't add the rental benefit on the policy for the car and they won't let you add it retro actively and use it on a claim so service centre is not an option as I will need a courtesy car.

Car is 2015 Toyota Camry Hybrid Atara S, so nothing too fancy and damage is a classic school holidays scraped passenger side on a deck pole when coming out of a tight driveway.. doh!

Ahh yeah, they mightn't be inclined to add it retroactively if they're liable for the costs. For mine it was a 100% not-at-fault accident, and I presume they knew they had a surplus of cars at the local centre, so they offered to add it.

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3288508 1-Oct-2024 11:38

When I used it I got a kia stonic, which was the worst newish car experience I have ever had. At least the wireless android auto worked.

Richard rich.ms

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#3288535 1-Oct-2024 12:36

Ragnor:

Interesting thanks for the replies, turns out I didn't add the rental benefit on the policy for the car and they won't let you add it retro actively and use it on a claim so service centre is not an option as I will need a courtesy car.

Car is 2015 Toyota Camry Hybrid Atara S, so nothing too fancy and damage is a classic school holidays scraped passenger side on a deck pole when coming out of a tight driveway.. doh!

I'm central/west Auckland based, looks like New Lynn has a bunch decent authorized repairers.

I'm out titirangi way and we put the Audi S4 (2010) into Wayne Scott on Portage Road the last time and they did a decent enough job... wasn't worth using precision on the shore due to the hassles of getting it there etc. for the car age and general wear and tear on a car of that age....

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3288869 2-Oct-2024 03:06

Benoire:

I'm out titirangi way and we put the Audi S4 (2010) into Wayne Scott on Portage Road the last time and they did a decent enough job... wasn't worth using precision on the shore due to the hassles of getting it there etc. for the car age and general wear and tear on a car of that age....

A relative just had a repair done at Wayne Scott with good results however they are not on the AA list apparently actually very few options, I guess they are really pushing the service centre option these days, cross checking AA and Toyota's list I see only A1 Autofinish in central/west on both, reviews on google seems decent so I'll give them a go.

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3320843 15-Dec-2024 16:09

Just to close this one out I went with A1 Auto Finish as they were on both AA and Toyota's approved repairer list, plus they had good reviews.

Cost for a loan car was $50 which appears to be standard across repairers in the area atm, quality of the repair was good. It didn't take that long less than a week.

Overall good experience and much more transparency and control than using the AA service centre option, also no reason to have the rental addon on your AA car insurance since it doesn't save you anything.

tchart

2379 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3320986 15-Dec-2024 21:32

vexxxboy:
Dont have a crash in Rotorua there is a 2 month wait to even see a repairer to get it assessed and then fixed

I feel you. In Upper Hutt we have 1 AA approved repairer who are also the sole Telsa repairer for the bottom of the North Island. They are always booked out for month and I’ve had to wait several months on occasion.