Non-Fault
Accident Repairs in Caversham & Abingdon

We offer a like-for-like replacement vehicle, a dedicated claims handler, no car insurance excess, and access to a nationwide repair network using genuine manufacturer parts.

It is advised that there is no impact on your car insurance premiums or No Claims Bonus, but we cannot guarantee this, as each insurance company has their own different terms & conditions. Therefore, we would advise to check them.

We provide like-for-like replacement vehicles to ensure you remain on the road with minimal disruption.

A dedicated claims handler manages all interactions with your car insurance provider, keeping you informed with live updates throughout the claims process.

A properly settled non-fault claim should not cost you your no-claims bonus. While the claim is open, your insurer will usually mark your NCB as ‘pending’ and may reduce it at renewal — but once they recover their outlay from the at-fault insurer, the bonus is reinstated and any overpaid premium refunded. This is why recovery matters and why claims that drag on hurt you.

The honest answer on premiums is that any recorded incident, fault or non-fault, can nudge your renewal quote, because insurers price on claim frequency as well as blame. The way to keep that impact to a minimum is to make sure the claim is recorded as non-fault and closed as non-fault, with liability formally admitted by the other side, rather than left as a 50/50 split or an open file.

If you deal with the at-fault insurer directly rather than claiming on your own policy, your own claims record stays clean — though you must still tell your insurer the accident happened.

You still have a route to a repair. The Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) exists to compensate victims of uninsured and hit-and-run drivers, funded by a levy on every insurance policy in the country. You can claim directly through the MIB, though there are conditions: you must report the incident to the police (within 14 days for an untraced driver, 5 days for uninsured), and for untraced-driver property damage claims there is an excess and a requirement that the incident was reported promptly.

If you hold comprehensive cover, there is usually a faster alternative — claim on your own policy under the uninsured driver promise that most insurers now include, which protects your no-claims bonus and refunds your excess where you can supply the other vehicle’s registration.

Get the registration if you possibly can, photograph the scene, and note any witnesses before you leave. Then call us and we will tell you which of the two routes gets your car repaired soonest.

The repair itself typically takes 3 to 10 working days once liability is agreed and the parts are in — a bumper and a wing is a few days, structural work with a paint bake and an ADAS recalibration is longer. Parts availability on newer models is the usual cause of delay, and we will tell you a realistic date before your car comes in rather than an optimistic one.

The claim settling financially between the insurers is a different matter and can run from a few weeks to several months where liability is contested. The good news is that you do not have to wait for it. Where liability is clear, we start the repair while the insurers are still exchanging paperwork, so your car is back with you long before the file closes.

If you have not heard anything in three weeks, call us — chasing the at-fault insurer is part of what we do, and it is a great deal easier for us than for you.

Yes, and it applies whether the accident was your fault or not. Where it was not your fault, the decision is entirely yours because the at-fault insurer owes you the cost of a proper repair. Where you are claiming on your own comprehensive policy, check your wording — some policies apply a higher excess if you go outside the network, but none of them can prevent you using an independent bodyshop.

Bring the car to us in Caversham or Abingdon for a free estimate first. That estimate is the document that starts the conversation with the insurer, and having a written figure from a repairer you have chosen puts you in a far stronger position than accepting whatever the network quotes.