INSURANCE companies are costing fleets time and money by taking too long to send insurance experts to inspect damaged vehicles, a repair body has alleged. Members of the Retail Motor Industry Federation's bodyshop services division say they are becoming increasingly alarmed at the amount of time it takes to send an engineer when the repairer dealing with the car is not on an approved list.

Bob Hood, senior manager of the bodyshop services division, has written to insurance companies suggesting they accept a video image or photograph and a faxed estimate to speed up the repair process. He said: 'When bodyshops are not on the approved list of the insurer, they tend to have to wait for days for the engineer to turn up. We are asking for the insurers to exercise common sense. As long as they get an image and a faxed copy of the estimate they should be able to approve work.

'We fully support approved repairer schemes. However, we feel that insurers run the risk of alienating their customers by allowing an unacceptable period of time to elapse between the accident and authorisation in non-approved bodyshops.'