Interestingly, I was directed to a claims management company by the manufacturer themselves via their "who to contact in the event of an accident" literature with the car. The only thing that was good about the experience was that the repair was done very well considering the amount of damage. Apart from this it was a disaster. No one could decide who was supposed to be picking up the damaged car, the courtesy car was a saga and whoever valeted the car after the repair did more harm than good. It also came back with some electrical issues that eventually made me get rid of the car.

My insurer Direct Line subsequently told me it would have been better had I contacted them first. Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is, I will certainly take their advice

Volkswagen offer free "VW Ensurance" which is a claims company - ironically when my VW Touareg's door mirror was damaged by a truck I tried to get the truck company to pay for the £1500 repairs directly but they prevaricated for weeks so I used VW Ensurance who provided a nice Mercedes-Benz GLE and added another £1500 to the total bill - you can't help some people.

A pertinent tale.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlxy2022zeo

The insurance companies are complicit in the credit hire debacle.

In 2020 I had a bump with my car. Both the 3rd party and their insurance immediately admitted liability.

My insurance policy with DL would provide a basic courtesy car (Peugeot 108, Kia Picanto or similar) as standard. I contacted DL and they tried to get me to go for an upgraded courtesy car (ie something comparable to my own car), once I realised they were trying to get me to take a credit hire car (they didn't use that name though). I said "no, I'll take the standard car that you provide on the policy".

As it worked out the hire company that DL uses didn't have any basic cars, so I ended up with a rather nice automatic Fiesta anyway. Funny how things work out.

What I couldn't get over though, was how DL were trying to bump up the cost of the claim.