Car accident: which workshop is mandatory?

Are they allowed to do that?

When the insurance company can prescribe a cheaper workshop

When can the insurance company insist on another workshop? A judgment ensures clarity in damage regulation after accidents. These are the crucial criteria.

After a traffic accident, the question often arises in which workshop the damaged car is to be repaired. A judgment of the Munich Higher Regional Court (Az.: 10 U 5397/21) provides clear answers to when insurance can insist on a cheaper workshop. It is a judgment with a signal effect – and it shows how wide insurance can go in the case of damage regulation.

In the specific case, it was about an accident in which the liability question had already been clarified. The injured party did not want to have the damage billed by an actual repair, but fictitiously. This means that insurance on the other side should pay for the repair costs without the car being actually repaired. The plaintiff used the costs of a brand workshop. But the insurance company refused to take it over and referred to a cheaper workshop. The dispute ended up in court.

The court stated that insurance may insist on a cheaper workshop if it offers the same quality and is easily accessible. In this case, an expert opinion confirmed that the cheaper workshop carried out qualitatively equivalent work. The accessibility of the workshop also played a role: it was 18.9 kilometers from the plaintiff’s place of residence, a distance that the court considered reasonable. If the workshop had been difficult to reach or if the journey would have taken longer than an hour, the judgment would probably have looked different.

The fact that the plaintiff was unable to demonstrate any difficulties when arriving was also particularly important. If there had been health restrictions or if the workshop would be difficult to reach by public transport, this could have influenced the case. But in this case there were no such reasons that made access to the workshop difficult.

The judgment of the Munich Higher Regional Court illustrates two central points: First, insurance can insist on cheaper alternatives when choosing the workshop if the quality of the repair is guaranteed. Second, the accessibility of the workshop must be reasonable – the injured party must not be unreasonably stressed by the way to the workshop.

For insured persons, this means that in the event of an accident, they do not automatically have the right to choose an expensive brand workshop. If a qualitatively equivalent but cheaper workshop is available, the insurance can insist on it. In practice, this means that the insured must be prepared for the fact that the choice of the workshop is not always in your hands if you handle the repair costs through the insurance.