hail damage and insurance payment - how to handle

[Anonymous]

We had a hail storm several weeks ago and have gotten 4k from insurance to fix our car. We have received the check. I am new to insurance claims and getting repairs. I've contacted the shop listed as the best hail damage repair place in my city. They want my insurance estimate before giving me an estimate. I feel like this means they are just going to charge me whatever the insurance folks gave me. Is this a normal practice??

[Anonymous]

Scam

[Anonymous]

How do you fix hail damage? I don’t think you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had a hail storm several weeks ago and have gotten 4k from insurance to fix our car. We have received the check. I am new to insurance claims and getting repairs. I've contacted the shop listed as the best hail damage repair place in my city. They want my insurance estimate before giving me an estimate. I feel like this means they are just going to charge me whatever the insurance folks gave me. Is this a normal practice??

IME, yes. And I don't necessarily think it's a scam - the insurance payout isn't designed to give you extra spending money, it's to fix the covered damage. So if the shop fixes the damage and gets all the insurance money, things are working as intended.

Another reason I don't think this is a scam is my experience with mechanics in this situation going both directions:

1. I have had a shop give me an estimate pre-insurance, the insurance come back with a smaller amount, and the shop matched it and did the original quoted work for the lower price; and
2. I have gotten a big check from insurance, gone to a shop about repairs, and had them explain that I really only needed to fix 2 of the 5 things that were included in the estimate (old car, on its last legs, so left all the cosmetic damage) and I left with plenty of cash in hand.