Wifey's car got hit in traffic- other guy's insurance

Mrs. Johnnie got piled into by an F150 Thursday evening. She did not suffer any injuries. The other driver was deemed at fault and his insurance company, Progressive, contacted her yesterday.

They've made an appointment to hustle her through one of their claim centers and do the repair and all that. Will it be okay? Is there anything I can do to insure that they do a good job? If it comes back with overspray on the muffler, I'm going to be really disappointed.

It's a 2005 Volvo S40 2.4i. The car was hit in the rear with visible damage to the rear bumper cover.

The insurance companies pick repair shops that do good work and stand behind their work for as long as you own the car. I wouldn't worry about that. The fact that they are trying to get you fixed is a good sign, in my opinion. My personal experience with insurance companies in the past 2 years has not been that positive.

OK, this is weird... my mother was in her '09 V50 last week and was hit by a guy in an F150 who ran a red light. Passenger rear-side hit. Over $5000 in damage.

IMHO - give the other guy's insurance info to your insurance company, use your company to get the car fixed. Let them fight it out. That's what you pay them for.

My wife had a similar accident last year. We worked with the other person's insurance. It went through s reputable shop and a loaner car was supplied by her insurance. After it came home I had two small issues with their work, over spray on a rubber part and a light with what appeared to be a broken clip (turns out it was just installed wrong) repair place fixed both issues without hassle. We didn't spend a dime. The accident itself was a much bigger inconvenience than the repair.

You can pick your own shop if you want. Most insurance company shops are good.

I think I'll press the easy button on this one and just let them do what they're going to do. If the repair disappoints, we'll protest it.

It was a square but solid bumper tap. No apparent sheet metal damage to the Volvo. F150 bumper hanging off. Too rainy to snap a pic of the Volvo bumper.

progressive's MO around here is "get this over with ASAP"

my wife got hit at the end of a ramp by one of their customers. within 30 minutes they were trying to get her to bring the car to their claim center to estimate the damage. i took it in within a couple hours as i was off and she was at work. 25 minutes of watching judge judy and having a free coke and some chips at their claim center, they made me an offer of $895 for the damage based on GM list prices for the repair parts plus book labor as the car was 24 years old and i told them i'd be repairing it myself. i accepted, and went home with a check within 5 minutes and also was told that if there was any further damage uncovered when the other damaged parts were removed that they would send an adjuster out and pay for that. thankfully, it was a $900 car and the damage was all under the bumper cover. i left it as is and continued to drive our now $5 car.

Ian F wrote: OK, this is weird... my mother was in her '09 V50 last week and was hit by a guy in an F150 who ran a red light. Passenger rear-side hit. Over $5000 in damage. IMHO - give the other guy's insurance info to your insurance company, use your company to get the car fixed. Let them fight it out. That's what you pay them for.

This is what I would do. In most states you're not going to be penalized for a claim that gets subrogated back to the other drivers' company, so that's not an issue. Be aware that the you'll wind up paying your deductible until the subrogation is finished, and that can take a very long time. A few years ago, my wife's friend's 16-year-old daughter backed their minivan into the door of my parked, unoccupied S4. About the only way it could have gotten more her fault was if she'd been drinking, yet USAA still dragged their feet for over 18 months before accepting that it was their customer's fault and reimbursing State Farm (my company). Of course, if they'd dragged it out that long with SF, how much of a pain would it have been to try to file the claim with them myself?

As for the repair shop question, I would expect that an insurance-company-approved shop would be a mid-tier shop. You can expect a certain minimum level of competence, but they aren't going to be the premium guys. They're not going to push for getting OEM parts, for example. 3 weeks after the incident above, my wife's Odyssey got rear-ended at a traffic light (no injuries). The Odyssey went to the insurance company shop (because it was fast and easy, which is what my wife wanted), the Audi went to the premium shop (because I was willing to wait to get it fixed right), and there's no question that the Audi came out with a much higher quality repair. The Odyssey repair was competent, but the Audi repair was top notch.