Insurance Companies Approved Repairer Schemes

EDM number 964 in 2001-02, proposed by Simon Thomas on 07/03/2002.

That this House notes that consumers have the rights to choose the garage of their choice for motor insurance repairs; further notes that many insurance companies direct their customers to use their approved garages in larger towns and cities for insurance repair work; is concerned that this centralisation of repair work denies small local repairers and their employees of much needed business in rural areas and is inconvenient for the the vehicle owners due to the distances and delays involved in going further afield; is further concerned that insurance companies may be using misleading language to deny their customers the choice to use a local garage as is their right; further notes that one trick currently used by the insurance companies is to state that they cannot provide a courtesy car if the customer uses a local garage when in fact courtesy cars are never provided by the insurance companies, but are provided by the garages themselves; believes that this statement leads customers to believe that they will not get a courtesy car if they use a local garage when this is not necessarily the case; further notes the use of the word 'approved' suggests that these repairers come highly recommended when in fact every repair has to be inspected and passed for the work achieved, thereby requiring the same standard by both approved garages and other garages; and calls for this issue to be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading as there has been considerable development and centralisation in the system since the last investigation in 1993.

This motion has been signed by a total of 13 MPs.