On Tuesday, our car got pranged in the side by a careless motorist. Annoying, but these things happen (evidently) and no-one was hurt, although I do wish Veronica would stop phoning me at work and starting the conversation with I’ve got some really bad news, when what she means is that something very inconvenient has happened. No matter.

Veronica was driving with the kids, and had just turned out of our tiny road into a not-much-less-tiny road leading to the main road, and so wasn’t travelling very quickly when the third-party pulled out of another side road. All pretty low speed stuff, I guess. Anyway, I’ve no idea how he managed it, really. He said he didn’t see her for parked cars, but come on, he ran into the side of her! She must have been virtually upon him when he set off, where were these cars parked?

So, it was obviously his fault, and he held his hand up to it at the scene (naughty, hope his insurers aren’t reading this), details were (eventually) exchanged and insurance companies notified.

So what’s all this about cheaper car insurance? There’s been quite a bit in the news recently about soaring motor insurance premiums because of immigrants crashing lorries at roundabouts, or something (I don’t really understand that one), but what about the ridiculous expense of even a low grade and completely legitimate claim? To fix our car, our insurance company arranged for a ‘local’ garage (they’re based in Barrow, we’re in Morecambe, go figure) to come and collect the car; they’ll repair it and fully valet it, before returning it to our door. We’ll also get a ‘courtesy car’ from a not-inexpensive car rental firm (actually local, this one); they’re going to extra lengths to get us an even more expensive car, since ours is quite large (a 3.0l V6 estate), never having asked if a ‘normal’ car would be sufficient – after all, it’s not costing us anything and it’s extra in their pockets, right? Oh, and they’re coming to collect us to take us to collect it, I expect that isn’t free, but, again, it isn’t costing us anything.

Top line service, I’m sure you’ll agree, and fully expected these days, but just imagine how much this is all costing for a relatively small amount of damage! The amount of people in the chain, charging a premium for their service, then adding a margin, before passing it up to the claims department, is frightening. I’d love to know what the final cost to the other guy’s insurers will be, just for the damage to our car, let alone their member’s repairs (and also if my insurers will add a little margin to the final bill).

The total cost will be thousands, it’s just a matter of how many.

And all for damage which, if I wasn’t going through the insurance would probably be a couple of hundred at a local garage or body-shop (OK, maybe a bit more, what do I know?).

I don’t think the third-party’s excess, which is likely to be no more than 250GBP, will cover it, do you?

So, if you want cheaper car insurance, stop demanding such high quality service. Fully valeted? For Christ’s sake!