After a vehicle collision, emotions are running high. It can all feel so overwhelming! There are some immediate things you need to deal with like medical emergencies, figuring out if your car is safe to drive, and deciding on the logistics of not having your car while it is being repaired. Dealing with auto insurance can be a headache when there are so many other things to sort out, but it doesn’t have to be! There are a few steps you can take to make this process go smoothly, and we can help with them.

The first thing to do is file a claim. When using your insurance company to cover repairs, you will need to contact them to let them know you’ve been in an accident and that you need to file a claim. If you already know where you would like your car to be fixed, tell your insurance company’s claims department so that they can collect the Facts of Loss. The Facts of Loss includes details like:

• Time of Day
• Location
• Direction of Travel
• Names of Occupants in the Vehicle
• Was Anyone Injured?
• Year, Make & Model of Vehicle
• Was Anyone Ticketed by The Police?
• Is there a Police Report?

The next thing you should do is get an estimate, and there are a couple different ways to go about this. You can do an estimate through photo apps or get an estimate from a body shop. When getting an estimate through a smartphone app, your claims department will instruct you on which app to download. From there, the app will guide on how to best catalog the detail of the accident. Insurance companies also rely on collision shops like ours to create an estimate of the cost of repair. When we conduct an estimate, we are looking at the damage that we can see without disassembling the vehicle. We then create a comprehensive file for your case which includes images along with the cost of parts and labor required to complete the job.

At Purnell Body Shop, we have a Direct Repair relationship with several major insurance companies, meaning they rely on our shop to write estimates, take all the required photos and electronically upload them to a specialized program for review, prior to any repairs being completed to the vehicle. Not only is this method cost effective for them, but it also has been proven to be the fastest for the customer. With our strong relationship with insurance companies, we make the estimate process simpler. Because we can often get your estimates done quicker, we can get started on your repairs sooner. This makes for less of a headache after accident and you can get your car back sooner.