Friend borrowed my car and had an accident.

[Bullbreedbliss]

So my friend, who is lovely, went on holiday to a remote area in the uk but she was worried as she has an electric car and there are limited charging stations so I let her borrow my car. Unfortunately someone drove into them and damaged the passenger doors. I can still drive the car but I can’t open the damaged doors and it looks awful. It wasn’t her fault as someone drove into her however it was her accident so we are having to deal with her insurance to get it fixed. We are approaching three weeks post accident and we are still waiting for the garage to take the car. First the garage said they were waiting for the insurance company to approve work, but that appears so have been authorised now so I don’t understand what’s taking so long. It’s frustrating as it’s her insurance company so it’s not like I can phone up to talk to them, and we are stuck using the insurance approved garage. I’m starting to feel quite anxious as she goes away abroad for six weeks soon and I feel like the longer we leave it, the less likely that it will be repaired. I feel guilty as I’ve been messaging her for updates and starting to feel like I’m badgering her. Moral of the story.. never lend your car out!

As pp said, get her to confirm to her insurance company that you have the authority to speak on her behalf and deal with the issue. That way you’re in control of the process.

For the final time… yes!

My BIL had this happen and because one door wouldn't open he asked the insurance company to confirm that it was ok to drive. Due to access after an accident or something they had to confirm it wasn't, which meant that they had to give him a loan car the same day. I would do the same if I was you.

Your friend needs to get on this though, very sad for you to have done the favour and then have the issue.

You absolutely don't have to use the insurers approved garage much as they'd like you to - I'd be ringing the garage and asking when this is going to be booked in as if it's not in the next day or so you'll be getting other quotes and requesting the work is done elsewhere. Insurance work is a good gig for garages as they pay a decent hourly rate for the work and usually over egg the hours so I doubt they'll want to lose the business.

You should be using her car in the interim OR she should hire a car for you to use if her insurance won't cover it.

Else she's not a friend.

Really it's not difficult to get temporary insurance (fully comp) on another person's car!
We do it for DD when she uses one of ours - it's not worth adding her as a named driver to our policies as she is at uni most of the time, but if she needs to drive during a holiday, or just for a weekend home, she can take out a temporary policy on one of our cars, in her name.

I think you need to say that this is putting enormous pressure on the friendship and she needs to find a way of sorting out the repairs. She has a moral obligation to when she is swanning around in a perfectly sound car and yours is a fucked up pain to drive.

Why aren't you chasing her? Call her tell her that you need your car fixed, push her to call the insurance company and then you'll call back in a couple of hours for an update if she doesn't call you.

In future don't either borrow or lend a car!

You need to keep badgering her and make her keep contacting the insurers and repair shop, daily if necessary. It's no good her just phoning them up weekly.

Insurers and body shops are an absolute nightmare to deal with as we found out when a neighbour couldn't be arsed to put her handbrake on and her car rolled off her drive and wrote off our car.

It took 3 months to get it sorted out, the first month was nothing but lies from the insurance company saying it was bng "processed", even telling us a file had been raised and loss adjuster appointed, which in a subsequent phone call turned out to be blatant lies, they'd not even started the processing! Even once the insurers allocated a body shop, the body shop never contacted us and when we started chasing them, they lied and said they'd not been instructed. Then they "booked" their recovery vehicle to come and collect it a week later, but that didn't turn up, then they said they wanted pictures, which we sent, then they said they'd never received them. Then they said the insurers had written it off anyway without "needing" to see the damage. It was an absolute ball ache of a nightmare.

The OP needs to be getting her "friend" to chase both the insurer and body shop on a daily basis. Otherwise weeks and months will pass.

But as others have said, you don't need to use their "appointed" bodyshop. You can find and use your own as long as they're industry approved and not some guy in his back street garage. A decent bodyshop will take you onboard and do all the chasing of the insurance company themselves to make progress.

Perhaps the "friend" should have thought about the practicalities of an electric car before she bought one rather than "delegating" the problem to the OP and using her petrol car for her convenience!

DH was rear ended on his way home from work about 5 weeks ago. His car went into the garage for repairs on Monday last week. He was supposed to collect it yesterday but the repair job is appalling so he rejected it. They’ve been on to the insurance company today who said he has to have it back, because it’s drivable, and they will have it back in early September to redo it.

It’s a complete PITA when you’re dealing with insurance companies ime

This sounds like the solution. Your friend should be able to put a note on her account that she authorises you to discuss this matter on her behalf.

It is the moral of the story though - whilst shit happens if it had been the op driving then she would not be dependent on the friend to sort the insurance

The real "moral" is never to lend things to people. I've learned it the hard way. I lent an expensive VCR recorder to my brother about 30 years ago (when they were rare because they we so expensive). He broke it somehow. He took it for repair and paid a small fortune to the repair shop, but it was never the same again with different faults. He abdicated responsibility once he'd paid for the repair and the repair shop just kept saying they'd repaired the initial fault, and the other faults were nothing to do with them. I ended up having to buy a new one out of my own pocket. I've never lent anything valuable to anyone else since, including family!

For those saying it could have happened to the OP themselves. Well, yes, in theory, but the reality is that it didn't. The car wouldn't have been in that position on that day if the OP hadn't done a good deed and lent it to a friend.

I only hope that the OP not only takes it seriously enough to start putting pressure on the insurers and bodyshop on a daily basis, but they've also bought the OP some lovely gift(s) as a goodwill gesture for all the stress and inconvenience caused by them borrowing the car.

The old saying was never more pertinent - "never a lender nor borrower be".

Get yourself authorised to speak about the matter with her insurers first and find out the exact present position and cause of the delay (parts are massively delayed at the minute) but after you do you have a few options. Get a quote from a local garage you’re happy with/have used before and ask them when they can do the work. Then see if the insurers will auth the repairs direct with them instead, presuming all is quicker. Or contact the at fault party insurers - they usually fall over themselves to deal as it’s cheaper for them in the long run. They will have their own network of repairers who maybe more convenient for you or alternatively authorise your local garage estimate.

Except that she wouldn't be at the mercy of somebody else's insurance company if it was her own accident .......

Your friend dosen't seem very motivated to sort this out quickly, is she a bit of a piss taker in general?

At the beginning of June, my husband's car broke down in Spain.

Long story short: we got the car back on Monday.
Everything just seemed to take ages to resolve.
It 'had' to be a Jaguar dealership mechanic.
They couldn't look at it for 2 weeks.
The RAC needed the same information twice about where the car should be delivered after repatriation.
Asking twice if my husband could move the car? 🤷🏻‍♀️
The stand-in mechanic wouldn't accept the car cos he didn't know it was arriving.

On and bloody on! 😫

Think this will be the best solution moving forwards. Thanks

Have you got a hire car from your friend’s insurance company? With door damage and that you have said that they don’t open, this should be classed as unroadworthy and a hire car provided. This is assuming that your friend ticked the ‘courtesy car’ box of course.
You can be an authorised person on your friend’s policy, they just need to give your name, date of birth, permission, etc. to the insurance company and then they can speak with you.
The estimate, authorisation phase is generally quite controlled and has strict SLAs attached. It’s getting the vehicle booked in to a busy workshop that can take the time.
This is speaking from my claims handling experience of course, not all insurance companies are the same. I hope it all sorts soon, for you.

Hope you can get this sorted out quickly by the means suggested OP.

I'm surprised, both times someone has hit my car in the last 2 years (one very recent) the insurance company having been very quick and efficient to sort it (Tesco and Aviva if you are intersted). It was pretty much booked in on the same day I reported it and car organised for me from Enterprise. They didn't need to wait for anything from the other insurance company they reclaimed that after and refunded me once it was sorted....that bit did take ages.

It can take a while for insurance companies to sort repairs out. Can your friend give you all the insurance details and authorise for them to deal with you? Then if not sorted when she goes away you can deal with them?

I agree, it wasn't her fault and even if you have a prang yourself it can take ages with insurance/ garage.