If you have had a knock on your car that’s scuffed your bumper, dented your door or even scratched your wing how should you go about getting it repaired? You can either go throughout insurance or pay for the repairs yourself, which one should you go for and which one would be the most cost efficient? In this article we will be exploring both options in detail to gain a perspective from both angles.

Well most people’s first port of call ( if the damage on your car had been caused by someone else) would be there insurance company, it makes sense, it’s not your fault so let someone else deal with the hassle of arranging the repair.  If only it was that simple , for most people you would need to go out of your way to get at least 3 quotes for the repairs or if not spend time indoors while your insurance provider arranges a hire car while yours gets picked up. You would need to have the hire car for a minimum of a week and when it’s returned you’d better not have any chips or scratches on it for you would most likely be charged for their repair.

The general time it takes to carry out a standard bumper repair in a garage is a week and a half, not sure why when it can be done in a day.  But when going through your insurance they can fix all types of repairs not just the minor ones that a mobile service can carry out.  The main down side in using your insurance is the time without your car and also the unknown of what will happen to your premiums the following year.  In some cases even though the accident is not your fault they will still keep that data on record and use it to generate the following years premiums.

Mobile service are great for small to medium repairs such as bumper scuffs, scratches, stone chips or cracked bumpers not so good on large area repairs like multiple panels  or full panel replacements. They do however come to you to carry out the repair and with most jobs on average taking only a few hours there’s no need to take excessive time off work.

In conclusion go with a mobile car body repair service for the smaller jobs but if you need to replace panels or have extensive body work damage use your insurance company and prey your no claims discount is protected.