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A vehicle accident management companyPractical accident support for the weeks after a collision
Sterling coordinates the practical vehicle-claim journey: the first report, eligible recovery, assessment, authorisation, managed repairs, replacement mobility and the updates that connect those stages.
What Sterling Accident is
An accident-management business. We coordinate accident support, repair arrangements, replacement-vehicle assistance and related claims administration for drivers across the UK.
What we are not: we are not an insurer, we are not a law firm and we do not give legal or financial advice.
See how the process worksOur purpose
A road accident is a short event with a long tail. The impact itself is over in a second. What follows can run for weeks: a vehicle you cannot use, a repair that has not been authorised, a call you are waiting for, and a growing sense that you are the only person actually chasing any of it.
Sterling Accident exists to take that tail off your hands. We coordinate the practical work — the assessment, the repair, the mobility, the paperwork — so that the person who has just had the accident is not also the project manager for its aftermath.
How we try to behave
Accident management has a reputation problem, and it is not entirely undeserved. Too much of the industry works by promising whatever gets a signature and dealing with the caveats later. We would rather lose an enquiry than win it on a promise we cannot keep.
In practice that means we tell you when a replacement vehicle is unlikely, we do not quote repair turnarounds we cannot control, and we are explicit about which decisions belong to an insurer or a third party rather than to us.
Who we work with
Our repair network is made up of independent bodyshops and repair centres. We are deliberately more interested in whether a repairer documents their work properly and raises problems early than in how large they are.
Garage partners get administration handled properly and a single point of contact for each case. In return we expect the repair standards we publish to be met, because the driver at the end of the chain has no way of checking the work themselves.
Information for garages · Repair standards
Where we operate
We coordinate accident support for drivers across the United Kingdom, arranging repairs through network repairers according to where the vehicle is and what the repair requires. Coverage in any given area depends on the repairers available and the type of work needed, so the honest answer to "do you cover my area?" is that we will check when you call.
Six things we hold ourselves to
These are not aspirations on a wall. They are the rules we use when a case gets difficult.
Safety before process
Nothing we do matters more than someone getting out of a dangerous situation. Every route into us says the same thing: if anyone is injured or the road is blocked, call 999 first.
Say what is actually likely
If a replacement vehicle is unlikely, or a repair will take longer than you hoped, you hear it from us early rather than discovering it later.
Ask once, not five times
Details you have already given should not be requested again by the next person you speak to. Where that fails, it is our failure to fix.
Explain costs before they arise
Any obligation or charge that could fall to you is explained before you commit to anything, not disclosed after the fact.
Protect the information you give us
Accident data is sensitive. It goes to the parties who need it to progress your claim, and no further. Uploaded accident photographs are stored privately outside the public media library.
Own the mistakes
When something goes wrong — and in a business with this many moving parts it sometimes will — we would rather hear about it and fix it than have you go quiet.
Built around one point of contact
The single biggest complaint about claims handling is being passed around. So our operations team is organised around cases rather than around tasks: whoever picks up your call can see the whole file, not just the last note added to it.
- One case file covering the report, assessment, repair and mobility
- Your registration number is enough to find it
- Updates pushed to you at each stage rather than only on request
- Repairer and engineer contact handled by us, not delegated to you
Where we can help
We arrange accident support for drivers across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What we can put in place in a particular area depends on the repairers available there and the type of work the vehicle needs.
Rather than publish a network figure that would be out of date within a month, we would rather you called and got a clear answer about your own postcode and your own vehicle.
What we want to be known for
Straightforward
Plain English, no hidden conditions, and a clear answer even when the clear answer is "no".
Human
People contact us on a bad day. Being efficient is not an excuse for being cold about it.
Thorough
A repair that looks finished is not the same as a repair that has been checked. We care about the difference.
Careful with your data
We collect what the claim needs, share it only where it has to go, and keep it no longer than we should.
The people behind the service
Sterling Accident is run by a small operations and claims team, supported by our network of independent repairers and suppliers.
Small is deliberate. The alternative — a large contact centre where every call starts from scratch — is precisely the experience most people complain about after an accident. A compact team means whoever answers can see your whole file, and the person who arranged your recovery is the person who knows why the assessment is taking longer than expected.
It also means we do not claim to be staffed at every hour of the day and night. If you call outside working hours, leave a message or send your report online and it will be picked up. If your situation is an emergency, that is what 999 is for, and we would rather say so plainly than imply a round-the-clock service we do not run.
Claims and operations
Take your report, review it, discuss eligibility with you and coordinate everything that follows.
Repair network partners
Independent bodyshops and repair centres carrying out the work, to the standards we publish.
Recovery and mobility suppliers
Recovery operators, storage sites and vehicle suppliers we instruct on your behalf.
How to reach us
- Report an accident
- Start your accident report online
- Complaints
- Acknowledged within 5 working days, answered within 20 — see our Terms and Conditions
Talk to us about your accident, or about joining the network
Drivers and repair garages both come through the same team. Tell us which you are and we will point you the right way.