Two customers, both making the wrong call
The first has a five-hundred repair and a four-hundred excess. They put it through the insurer, lose their no-claims, pay most of the bill anyway, and you get insurer rates and insurer paperwork on a job that could have been simple.
The second has three thousand pounds of damage and decides to pay privately because they are afraid of their premium. They then get three quotes, agonise for a fortnight, and drive around with a caved door.
Neither of them is being foolish. Nobody buys accident repair often enough to have a model of how it works. And the shop whose website gives them that model gets the enquiry.
Why it is worth your while to explain
Private work is the work you want. No insurer schedule, no third-party approval, no thirty-day payment terms, and a customer who chose you rather than being sent.
The page that explains claiming honestly is therefore not charity. It sends you more of the jobs that pay best, and it costs you an occasional claim you did not really want.
What the page has to answer
Six sections, each two or three sentences.
What an excess actually is. The amount you pay before the insurer pays anything, and it applies whether or not the accident was your fault, though you may get it back if another party is liable. A quarter of customers do not know this.
The arithmetic. The honest version, with numbers: if the repair is close to your excess, claiming gains you almost nothing and costs you the claim on your record. If the repair is several times the excess, claim.
What claiming costs beyond the excess. The no-claims effect, the premium at renewal, and the years a claim sits on the record. Describe how it generally works and attribute the detail to their insurer.
Whether they can choose you. Customers assume the insurer decides. Depending on the market and the policy they usually have more freedom than they think. State it accurately for where you work, and say what to tell an insurer pushing a nominated repairer.
Whether you are an approved repairer. If you hold manufacturer or insurer approvals, name them exactly. If you do not, say what you do have instead: qualifications, equipment, the guarantee. Never imply an approval you do not hold.
What to do next. Send the photographs and the registration through the estimate form. We will give you a figure, and then you can decide which route makes sense.
The wording that keeps you safe
Describe general practice and attribute the specifics to the policy: "most policies", "typically", "your insurer will confirm". Never state a person's excess, premium effect or no-claims outcome as fact.
And on approvals, be precise. Consumer protection regulators in every market treat a false claim of approval as a serious matter, and competitors report it.
Where the page goes, and what it does to the estimate
Beside the estimate button, and linked from the estimate reply. Give it a plain URL, because people search for exactly this — should I claim on insurance for a dent — and a specific page beats a services page for that search every time.
Then put the question in the form itself, as three options: claiming, paying privately, not sure. "Not sure" will be the most common answer, and it tells the estimator to include the arithmetic in the reply rather than guessing.
What changes when it exists
The two-week silence after an estimate shortens, because the customer is no longer stuck on a question they were too embarrassed to ask. The mix shifts towards private work. And the small claims that were never worth anybody's time stop arriving.
Where this sits
Our body shop websites include the insurance-or-private page with the arithmetic in it, linked from the estimate flow, at a fixed price. The wider trade version is on the automotive page. Tell people when not to claim. It is the most profitable honesty available to you.