...damage was so minimal I'm unsure what it's going to look like trying to get it fixed....Paint-only damage to all passenger-side body panels except rear door...GEICO claim they can fix all this at one of their affiliated shops and that I should take their "GEICO Express" offer to just drop the car off and have it dealt with. Or I can go to the same shop, have an GEICO adjuster look at the car, write me a check, and get it fixed wherever I want. If I have other options under the policy they're not saying so.
Repainting one side of your car is not minor work!!
I don't know New York law, but in California you have the legal right to take your car to any shop you like and the insurance company must go along with that. Insurance companies WILL attempt to get you to go to their "preapproved" shops - and will tell you this is for your benefit. They'll say the shops meet quality standards, are more convenient yada yada. What they are not telling you is these shops get a huge amount of business from them, and are incentivized to work as cheaply as possible to retain the insurance company's business. I've been with Farmers a long time and they know me well enough to no longer try to suggest I go to their factory farm preapproved body shops.
FWIW OP I have owned a string of 6 figure cars over the years and have had the dubious "good fortune" of dealing with many body shops over 15+ years for everything from minor dent removal to big collision work. In all my years I have never, not once, seen absolutely perfect body work on the "first round" of dealing with a shop except for Dave Freed in Santa Monica - and he works exclusively on Ferraris, Lamborghini and other exotic cars, charging over $100 per hour for body work.
The routine with every other production shop - even high end ones - working on Benzes, Audis, etc. - has been a variation on the following:
Shop: "Hey your car is ready come on down." I come on down.
Me: "Um, I'm sorry but this silver on my Audi A8 does not quite match the other panels - come stand here and look at it in the light from this angle. Why didn't you blend? I told you to blend and you said you didn't need to. I told you this on day one. Please do it over again."
Shop: "Okay fine."
And since I refused to sign off on the work, they would not get paid by insurance until it was done properly.
Other miscellaneous problems - orange peel not matching, slight overspray, emblems not put on properly, body panels not quite aligning etc. And these are high end shops. The body shop industry is what it is.
Almost always, even with shops I have a relationship with, it takes a second round of quality control to get things done right.
I'm sure I am an annoying perfectionist but the point is body shops are capable of doing excellent work if you force them to do it and make it clear you accept nothing less. If you return to find anything less than perfection refuse the car, show the manager the problem and let the shop make it right.
What I have learned is that paint is an art form and matching is not as easy as you would think.
If I were in your shoes I would research the best body shops in my area and take your car to one of them.
I would also get it in writing that the shop will not share your information with Carfax. Although I hear that is now done by insurance companies not body shops.
