Car insurance claim process - Critical things you must know

November 4, 2010 9:53 AM EDT

Do you know that when you file a car insurance claim in case of an accident, you have two options to settle your claim - cashless or reimbursement? You can either get your car repaired at a garage preferred by your insurance company or repair the car at a garage of your choice. You can decide on the claim type depending on what suits you more. Let's understand the process for both - cashless and reimbursed claims.

Cashless claim
Cashless claim is when you don't have to make any payments to the car repair garage from your own pocket, i.e., it is "cashless". Many, if not most reputable, garages are on the list of your insurance company's partner garages. You get your car repaired at one of these garages after the accident. The insurance company will settle the payment directly with the garage.

If your car is involved in an accident, apart from the basic things like taking any injured party to the hospital and filing an FIR, the following ought to happen:

1.Call up your insurance company after the accident requesting them to initiate the claim process.
2.The insurance company will provide you address of the nearest cashless service centres.
3.A surveyor will carry out an inspection of the car and will thereafter authorise the claim for items/damages that are covered under the policy. The garage will then repair the car and will directly settle the bill amount with the insurer
You will need to submit the following documents to the garage itself:

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•Duly-filled claim form
•Registration copy certificate of your vehicle
•Driving license copy of the insured person
•Photocopy of the first two pages of the policy document
Reimbursement claim
If you don't avail of the cashless facility, you can choose to file a reimbursement claim. In this, you can take your damaged car for repairs to a garage of your choice and pay out of your own pocket. Thereafter, you can ask for reimbursement of the repair expenses from the insurance company.

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The process followed in a reimbursement claim is:

1.After the accident, you take the car to your preferred garage.
2.The garage will give you a cost estimate towards repair. A surveyor from the insurance company will approve the scope of work and the cost involved.
3.After completion of the repair work, you will need to submit the original bills and payment receipts to the insurance company.
4.The reimbursement amount is worked out by the insurance company. They will then forward you the amount payable along with detailed statement of calculation.
A reimbursement claim would require you to submit the original receipts and payment receipts to the insurance company in addition to the documents mentioned in the cashless claim procedure. The entire process could theoretically take up to 7 days from you submitting the document, but in reality it could take longer.

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