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Cars suffer 'more than £10million of damage in three days' 

More than £10 million of damage has been done to cars in just three days as the Beast from the East pounces on the UK's roads, an insurer has estimated.

Figures from the AA's Cardiff-based car insurance claims team yesterday suggest that nationally the Siberian snow has led to more than 8,000 collisions - costing insurers more than £10.7 million.

The estimated bill is based on the average cost of repairing a damaged car being around £1,300.

On Wednesday, the number of insurance claims was more than a third higher than on a normal Wednesday for that time of year, the AA said. Two-thirds of claims related to mishaps in the snow and ice.

Michael Lloyd, the AA's director of insurance, said: 'Claims are going up as you might expect during the extremely icy weather that the country is experiencing.

'Based on the AA's share of the car insurance market, we estimate that the total number of private cars involved in collisions is well over 8,200 and rising.

'That equates to around £10.7 million-worth of dented metal.'

He said that, fortunately, many of these crashes have happened at relatively low speed as motorists do their best to drive according to the conditions.

Often, cars have hit objects such as kerbs, bollards or barriers. Walls, lamp posts, road signs, bus shelters and wheelie bins have also come off badly. 

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