Auto Hail Damage Repair
Hi. My name is Trey Pool. I am the owner and head technician of Dent Works of Austin, a Paintless Dent Repair company located in Austin, Texas. I set this page up to be a source of information for anyone whose car or truck is damaged in a hail storm.
Here in Austin, we get hail storms almost every spring, and there are a lot of questions we are asked at the shop when this happens. I hope to try to answer a lot of these questions here, because one thing I have learned over the past 12 years in this business is that many people do not know all of their options. Sometimes the wrong decisions are made because of this.
First things first. Contact your insurance company. Don't call your agent, though, call the claims department. The phone number is usually on the back of your proof of insurance card. If not, it will be in your policy papers.
When you call, they will tell you if you need to bring your vehicle to a specific location for them to prepare your claim, or they may be able to send a claims adjuster to your home or work to do this. You should get this part done as soon as possible, because the insurance companies are going to get very backed up very quickly after a big storm. Waiting to get your claim opened might cause you to have to wait for weeks for the insurance company to see you.
Wash the car before the insurance adjuster looks at it. If the vehicle is dirty or dusty, it is difficult to see all the damages.
Sometimes the insurance adjusters don't spend as much time as they should looking over a vehicle. Don't be afraid to get involved and point out dents and any broken trim pieces or cracked glass.
Choose a repair shop. In Texas, you have the right to have your vehicle repaired at the shop of your choice.
Many insurance companies will try to persuade you to use a shop they will refer to as one of their "preferred shops." This in no way means that these "preferred shops" are the best at repairing your hail damage.
A preferred shop is a shop that is on what is called a Direct Repair Program (DRP) with your insurance company. To be on these programs, shops must agree to terms, above all else, that entail giving certain discounts to the insurance company. Basically, they agree to work cheaper in exchange for being able to get a large flow of work directed their way.
The problem with agreeing to work cheaper is a simple one. It's the oldest story around, and its meaning never changes. You Get What You Pay For. If something costs less at one shop, less work is being done. Corners are being cut. Period. There are no two ways about it.
Before I opened Dentworks of Austin, I did hail damage repair for years as a sub-contractor at many different body shops. I worked in lots of shops that were on DRP programs. The one consistent thing about all these shops was they were always asking me to work for less money than I knew a job was worth. The shops do not want to jeopardize their relationship with the insurance companies. So the choice was to do the work cheaper or don't do any work. My conscience would never allow me to sacrifice the quality of my work in order to get more repairs done in a shorter time period, but that that is the way it is in most cases. That's the main reason I left that all behind me and opened Dentworks of Austin.
At Dentworks of Austin, we do not work for the insurance companies. We work for our customers. Since opening the shop in 2005, we quickly climbed to the top of the heap of Paintless Dent Repair shops in Austin. We have expanded every year and moved into a bigger and more convenient location. We are absolutely the number one largest, most professional and efficient Paintless Dent Repair company in Austin. We grew to this level purely by word of mouth from our customers. We are 100% dedicated to being the number one Paintless Dent Repair company in Austin from now on.
www.dentworks.com
7531 Burnet Road
Next door to Top Notch Hamburgers
Click here for a Google Map of the location.