I've done claims company before many years ago. Absolutely no benefit over going through your own insurance company. End result is the same and all a claims company is interested in is their pay-out, not you.
Not a bad result in the end though. I wouldn't mind a payout like that for mine 
ywah it's not a pretty picture when you think about it logically Dan, they want to screw driver you out of everything but I got very lucky as I contacted the engineer and got him to add the missing damage to then write it off and what a result that was.
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solicitor forwarded the cheque directly to me as I told her what the claims company was doing so again result. It was a nice tidy sum but all gone now after getting carried away buying crap for the car