repainting the car using insurance ??

Hi there, Quick question ( Im new to UK motoring so please bear with me and my ignorance inregards of insurance claims ) - I went out of the country and my sister asked me if she could drive the Porsche down to Tesco - I said yes, since shes on the insurance policy as well. Today I returned and she was crying since someone scratched the rear bumper , most likekly with a shopping trolley - BASTARDS. I start looking at the car and I got even worse, since BOTH doors, passenger and driver, have like 5/6 small paint dents - most likely the bastards that were parking next to the car and when opening their doors, hit on mine. Got me thinking - I have a insurance cover with Elephant - can I claim it ? Paying the excess ? I need my rear bumber resprayed, both doors and I can also use the front bumper which has strong discoloration. Can I make a claim saying that all that was in the supermarket ? Or I need to crash to make a claim ? Call the police ? How it works ? Thanks in advance ps > in case they approve, who chooses the bodyshop ? they or me ? cause I dont want some guy with a paintgun who only painted airfix kits in his life to start trying with my car. pss > I have compreensive insurance with Elephant, 1 NCB going for the second ( never hit or made a claim, just no previous UK driving experience )

Hi, Not good! A few pointers though. Generally not a good idea to claim off insurance unless you have to. With regards to who repairs it, it depends on your policy. Some policies insist it has to be at their approved repairers, in which case, that's going to be an issue for you. In which case, you might be able to negotiate a Porsche repairer/specialist, where you contribute to the cost (eg. Porsche OPC Reading/Guildford/Chiswick use Bodytechnics, but I've heard mixed reports about them). The good news is that because it's the rear PU, I wouldn't be too concerned about having a specialist paint it, as you will lose the colour difference in the gaps anyway (others on here will disagree, but I had my Boxster PU resprayed and I could not see the difference....in fact, I saw it in town the other day (about 4 years after it was resprayed) and I still could not tell it had been resprayed). This cost me about £300 and I decided it wasn't worth going through insurance. So for this reason, I would get an estimate before telling the insurance company and then decide what you want to do. Even though you have protected NCB, the fact that you are making a claim will dramatically affect the premium (ie. the price before the NCB discount is taken into account), coupled with the excess, means it's unlikely to be financially beneficial to go through the insurance company. Again, check your policy to confirm whether you need an incident number from the police (not usually required), before you call them (as it might be required within 24 hours of the accident and can be used as an excuse to pay out. With regards to the door dents, has this gone through the paint? If not, I would recommend that you do not get these resprayed and simply use someone like dent masters to pop the dents out. This avoids the need to use a specialist paint shop (who will need to blend the paint). However, if it's gone through the top coat, then it will need respraying (or get the dents popped and then decide what you want to do). If you do claim, you will also need to convince the insurer that this is a single claim and not too accidents....not easy. Cheers, GD