How long does it take until the insurer pays?

After an accident that was not your fault, it usually takes four to six weeks from the report (Gutachten) to payment. The time does not start on the day of the accident. It starts when the other party's liability insurance has the report and all other documents. Every item must also have a stated price. If liability is clear and the file is complete, payment is often faster. A disputed question of fault, a total loss (Totalschaden) or missing proof can make the claim settlement (Regulierung) much longer.

No report yet? The inspection usually takes place within one to three working days. Call us at 09131 91 66 143 or report the damage online.

When does the deadline start?

This is the most common mistake in accident settlement. Many people count from the day of the accident. The insurer counts from the day it receives your itemized claim, with a price for every item. If even one item is missing, the insurer sees the file as incomplete. The review time then practically starts again. The real start date of your settlement is therefore the day your report and the list of all items are sent.

Note: Before sending, check that all the usual items and documents are included:

• the damage report (Schadengutachten) with repair costs, or with replacement value (Wiederbeschaffungswert) and residual value (Restwert)
• the diminished value (merkantile Wertminderung), if the car is young enough
• loss-of-use compensation (Nutzungsausfall) or rental car costs, with proof of the downtime
• the flat-rate expense allowance (Unkostenpauschale)
• the invoice of the independent vehicle expert
• your bank details and the vehicle registration certificate (Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I)
• if you actually repair the car: the repair invoice or a repair confirmation (Reparaturbestätigung), which is the written confirmation from the repair shop that the repair was done professionally

If one of these is missing, the insurer does not pay out the rest either. The file stays untouched.

How long may the other party's insurer review the claim?

There is no single legal number for every accident. Court decisions give a typical time based on experience. The law also sets a final time limit. Together they give this frame:

§ 3a PflVG is the hard legal limit here. If the insurer clearly has to pay and the amount of the damage is stated, the insurer must send an offer with reasons within three months. If it does not, interest is due on the claim. Your lawyer for traffic law can tell you whether the insurer is already late with payment (in default) in your case. Your lawyer can also tell you which steps make sense. As independent vehicle experts, we provide the figures, not the legal assessment.

What delays payment in practice?

From our daily work, it is almost always the same six causes, and none of them lies with you:

How a match in HIS happens and what you can do about it is explained on our page about the HIS entry and the free data access request (Selbstauskunft).

How long does it take from the report to payment?

This is the question we are asked most often, and it can be split into clear steps. The numbers below come from our experience in Erlangen, Fürth and Nuremberg. They are not a promise for your case:

1. Accident to inspection: usually within 24 hours. The inspection itself takes 30 to 45 minutes.
2. Inspection to finished report: one to three working days, longer for complex damage.
3. Sending to the insurer and the law firm: on the same day. From here the review time of the insurer runs.
4. Review by the insurer: two to six weeks. This is the real bottleneck, not the report.
5. Payment instruction (Zahlungsanweisung) to money in your account: two to five working days of bank transfer time.

A fast report therefore shortens the first two steps, not the fourth. But it does affect one thing. A complete report with clean photo documentation and a clear calculation basis leaves less room for questions. These questions are exactly what costs weeks. How we work is explained on the page about the damage report (Unfallgutachten and Schadengutachten).

What can you do yourself to get paid faster?

Note: A document sent later makes the review time longer. These six steps help most in practice:

1. Send all items at once instead of sending documents later.
2. Send the documents in a way you can prove. Then the start of the deadline is documented.
3. Make sure the report goes to the other party's insurer and to your law firm at the same time, not one after the other.
4. If you have the car repaired, send the repair confirmation with it. This removes the reason for a second inspection.
5. Give your bank details with the account holder's name spelled to match the name of the registered keeper (Halter) of the car.
6. If your car is a total loss, sell it only after a deadline that you set yourself has passed. Write down the sale date and the buyer.

What if nothing arrives after six weeks?

Then it is almost always one of two causes. Either the file is incomplete in the insurer's view, or an item in the report was reduced and nobody has answered the reduction yet. Both can be clarified before you think about legal steps.

In practice: First ask the insurer in writing which document is missing or which item it disputes. If an insurer review report (Prüfbericht) arrives, send it to us before you accept it. We check the reduced items from a technical point of view, see report review (Gutachtenprüfung) and expert statement (Stellungnahme) on reductions. Your lawyer, not the vehicle expert, assesses whether and when the insurer is legally late with payment. Your lawyer also assesses whether a payment reminder or a lawsuit makes sense.

Does it take longer for a total loss than for repairable damage?

Yes, usually. For repairable damage, the insurer mainly checks one calculation. For a total loss, replacement value and residual value are added, and for both values the other party often asks for its own offer. This costs extra time. What a total loss means in detail and which three types exist is explained on our page about total loss of a car.

Also, the downtime keeps running. The loss-of-use compensation for the days without a car stays a separate item, no matter how long the insurer reviews. You should therefore include it in your itemized claim from the start and not add it at the end.