Unless the excess payment was unusually large, i think the insurance would be the only sensible way to go here. Assuming we are talking about roof and bonnet, that is a lot of bodywork to deal with. Presumably the bonnet would simply be replaced but the roof, i'd imagine, would be repaired. This would involve a lot of labour, filling and sanding all those little dents.

I was faced with this problem after a freak hailstorm in Leicestershire in 2012 that peppered the bonnet, boot lid and other bits of my MX5 - the bonnet and boot are aluminium btw.

Saw a couple of paintless dent specialists who said to replace boot and bonnet as he would not be able to get to the dents due to the support ribbing. He was talking of a £500/day fee too because of the demand and nature of the work. This is a very specialised work - some call it a black art - so they do charge high prices. Other problem was local bodyshops were inundated with similar repairs as most of the local dealers had stock badly damaged too. Through a friend who knew a bodyshop manager in an adjacent county, this garage prepared a detailed estimate, and my insurance company picked up the £2,250 bill. Did a very good job too.

A neighbour suffered similar to his Audi, repair estimate £3,200, car valued at £4k, so as he'd had the car from new, bought the salvage back and ran it into the ground.