Since I discovered the situation that being not at fault in an accident had left us in, I've done a lot of research and also taken some professional advice. As a result, I have solved our own problem by being able to successfully negotiate directly with the third party insurer to arrange repairs to our vehicle and, hopefully, keep everybody's costs in this instance to a minimum. Our vehicle is going to the local Land Rover Specialists, as we originally wanted, to have a sensible repair at a realistic price. In fact, following the conversation today with the Land Rover people I dare say the final cost for the repairs alone will be probably a third of what they would have been had we taken the option originally proposed to us by our own insurance company. So, I have resolved my problem but not without some serious hard work regarding research and obtaining professional advice and I think other people need to be made aware of the problems they are possibly facing should they be unfortunate enough to find themselves in the same situation. I will start a new post to share the information I have gathered and, hopefully, to pre-arm anybody who ends up in the same boat we were in only a few days ago. Many thanks to those of you who took the time to read my original posting and to those who also took the trouble to reply.

Can someone please explain this to us? Brief details: After 30 plus years of accident free motoring, maximum no claims etc. have recently been involved in a fairly minor accident where the other party basically pulled straight out in front of me from their own driveway resulting in a not too dramatic collision. Obviously not too much to question as to blame etc. Insurance details, name and addresses exchanged no problem. Nobody hurt so police not involved. Next stop = tell insurers and start claim proceedings. This is where it all starts to go Pete Tong. Insurance company took all relevant details no problem but then, instead of starting to process the claim for us, as we expected them to do under the terms of our fully paid up, comprehensive policy, we were advised that in the case of a "non fault claim", which this clearly is, it is their policy to hand the case over to an approved accident management company who will then deal with the remainder of the process. OK. Don't remember being told anything about this when we took out the insurance and can't find any reference to it anywhere in the reams of scrap paper that came with the documents. Decided to go along with it to begin with. Insurance company gave us the name of the management co. and said that the claim would be logged as report only for their own records and no further involvement would now be entered into by them - all future contacts to be made directly to the accident management company. Next step is to arrange a loan car for us to use as our vehicle is not in a roadworthy condition. Also advised that we should not attempt to drive our vehicle from now on and that the accident management company would arrange for it to be removed by them and taken to their nominated repair centre which, for all we know, could be on the moon because nobody seems to want to divulge this obviously highly classified secret squirrel information. I said that, given the opportunity, I would prefer that the vehicle was repaired at a local garage, preferably an independent Land Rover Specialist which we are lucky enough to have just a couple of miles away and with whom we have dealt very happily in the past and who we knew were familiar with working on this type of vehicle. No - sorry - can't do that. It must go where we say. Why?? Because!!! Now - what about this loan car? Don't want one thanks. But you're entitled to one! No thanks - don't want one, got another car anyway so don't need one. But you've got to have one - it's the terms! OK. Still don't want one thanks. End of phone call. Next step - accident management company will now take over all proceedings and will be in touch in due course. In the mean time don't use the vehicle and do nothing. Being ever so slightly not amused and puzzled as to why the company we had paid good money to for a fully comprehensive, bells and whistles insurance policy had basically washed its hands of us and referred us to some management firm we've never heard of, decided to do a bit of Googling. So, it turns out this "accident management specialist" is actually a credit hire company that seems to exist for the sole purpose of ripping off everyone and their grannies with over inflated prices for unnecessary fancy hire cars. On top of that they want you to sign a convoluted credit agreement which, it seems, means that after they have made a complete and utter balls up of handling the claim, they will then come back after us for the hire car charges and any other expenses they may have run up along the way. If we continue to be uncooperative by refusing their nice posh overpriced and un needed hire car, we must alternatively sign up to a repair credit agreement which states that, should they prove unsuccessful in pursuing a settlement against the third party, would render us liable for all repair and other associated costs incurred by them. So - how the hell does this work and, more to the point, how can it be legal? The last accident I had was when I accidentally bumped into Noah in his ark. Since then the insurance companies have cheerfully taken all our premiums for years with no problem, yet now it comes to wanting something back - tough luck - you're on your own mate. Go play with this shower of cowboys!!! I don't want a fancy hire car to pose around in for goodness knows how long while they drag their heels and then end up with a bill similar in size to the national debt of some country you can't pronounce. All I want is our car mended like the bits of paper the insurance company gave out led us to believe and then get on with our lives. Why is that difficult?? Seems to me that these days insurance policies aren't worth the paper they're not written on. Hope someone out there can explain this in words of one syllable or less cos it's got me beat. Thanks in anticipation.