Can I delay car insurance repair for a couple of weeks?

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

Just had a nasty incident with a bollard. It's an insurance job. I've reported it online to my insurance. Got to wait til Monday to hear from the repairer though. However, the timing of this is terrible. I get married in just over two weeks and need the car to transport all our large items to the venue in 13 days time. Plus, it's being used to transport me in my HUGE(!) dress on the day. It's a 7 seater. My courtesy car is likely to be a small hatchback. It doesn't look as if we can upgrade the car to a bigger one from my reading of the policy. So, my best option is to delay the repair for 3 weeks (it's perfectly driveable). Is this something that insurers will allow? We are travelling around the UK after the wedding with our 3 kids, so it isn't ideal to go back until the week after the wedding and the trip. So it will be a little over 3 weeks.
Anyone else have any good ideas if not?! Help a stressed out bride who is having a very bad Friday!

Picture of my poorly car 😫. The bollard in the picture is not the culprit! It was one further ahead that wasn't visable at all from inside the vehicle.

Is there a reason that you think it's not something you can do?

I dont have a lot of experience but if it was my car i'd assume Id book it in to suit me

I just assumed they arrange to pick up within a few days. I didn't think it would necessarily be something that was okay to wait. But I needed to report the accident. If its fine, that's great! Saves a lot of stress. Just obviously not going to look great pulling up in it, but its hardly a new car anyway, so I'll grin and bear it!

Have you actually spoken to them about dates? It took about 2 months for my car to be booked in for repair. And that was without me delaying things. I popped in after work the day after I'd been crashed into, they looked at it, declared it safe, and arranged the date.
I really wouldn't worry about the timings. Talk to them after the weekend, but I really can't see an issue.

As it looks totally drivable, I doubt they will book it in that quick anyway, see if you can get it in in a month or two

Yes, completely drivable, just got to remember not to open that window!!
Hopefully I'm worrying over nothing and we can just book it in at a convenient time. Thanks!

I’ve just had an insurance repair done. From accident to going into the garage was about 6/7 weeks. Totally drivable car and that was the earliest they could fit me in.

If it’s safe to drive,the insurers won’t be in a hurry to get it off the road as they’ll have to pay for hire car for potentially several weeks until the Bodyshop can fit it in. There’s typically a long wait - ours took 2 months in the queue for the Bodyshop! It actually took a couple of weeks for them to inspect it before it was put in the queue. Like everything else it’s all at a snails pace these days with not enough admin staff in the insurers and not enough body shops for the number of cars!

Someone juat mentioned about it being a write off potentially! Completely thrown me. It better bloody not be! That car has been meticulously looked after mechanically and I'm not ready to give it up. It's been so reliable. And not all cars are, so buying the same one would not be the same at all. This has been serviced by the same guy every year and all work done to spec. It's been so well serviced that it's never broken down, or needing anything other than brake pads and tyres. All my cars before were money pits.
God, I didn't need that stress on top!

If they write it off, just buy it from them and pay for your own repair out of the payout. It’s what we did when ours was written off, we ended up in profit as the payout more than covered the £300 “purchase price” and having it repaired by a backstreet body shop. The insurance firm authorised body shops cost a fortune!

It's 2017, 65k miles.

How does that work? That blows my mind! So they give me a price for my car if it wasn't damaged? And I pay them the price it's worth when it is damaged? What if it doesn't cover the cost of repairs? Plus the issue of not having a hire car then? Am I getting this wrong?

I booked mine in with a similar ‘ injury ‘ from a similar bollard 🤦🏻‍♀️, several months later , no problem at all . They just gave me garage details and I dealt with them direct

I’m sure it won’t be an issue.

I can’t see an issue, they may not even be able to book you in for a couple of weeks as it’s not urgent

You buy it back at scrap value, currently around £300 depending on the insurer.

So to buy my car again is looking around 9k - theres only one on autotrader same year, mileage not too dissimilar, and same model/spec. Realistically I'm not going to get that am I? Have people got the cost of their car back? Parkers basic val is as attached 😬. Which doesn't look good given I can't buy the same car for their estimates (my car is 68k miles, so under average miles for its age, their free estimate is based on average miles for its age).
Does it really just cost about £300 to buy it back? Is have thought it would be a lot more. So much food for thought then!

IF the insurance write it off, then you can haggle with them over the value. You can tell them of it's low mileage, immaculate condition, full service history, etc., to get the top end of the value range. The one we had written off had a We Buy Any Car PX value of £900 and we found cars advertised on auto trader etc of similar condition for £2,000. We "negotiated" nearly £3,000 for it as ours was demonstrably better than the one at £2k, i.e. even lower mileage, full service history at dealership garages, recent timing belt change, etc. It;s "market value" they should pay you, in it's accurate condition etc., not a PX value.

If you think its "worth" £9k to buy an exact replacement, then that's what the insurance should pay you.

But, in reality, if that's genuinely what it's worth, then they're highly unlikely to write it off for just damage to a couple of side panels as it will cost a lot less than that to repair, even in an expensive insurance approved body shop.