Basically with my insurance I legal cover, when i first phoned up I had 2 choices in course of repair:
1) go through my insurance company, i would then have to pay my excess and it can go to a garage I choose and then I would have to reclaim the excess back off the 3rd parties insurance company (you can imagine how long this will take) or
2) go through my insurance companies legal team which costs nothing, I get a "like for like" courtesy car and they will arrange everything only stipulation is I have to take it to one of their approved garages and they claim the costs back from the 3rd party.
Seeing as I haven't done anything wrong I wasn't going to go for option one and shell out a load of money, so option 2 it was and the car has already had it's estimate and pics taken (yesterday) i'm just waiting to hear from them to give the all clear :) then it can get repaired at no cost to myself.