Difficult/Expensive to fix dents in aluminum? And insurance?

I found a large dent on the aluminum hood of my BMW E60 545i. Its not that deep, you only see it due to the curving of the reflection, but the area of impact is quite large - larger than a fist or grapfruit.

Aluminum is a new material for BMW, so I haven't had much luck getting good advice from BMW owners about the situation. I thought I'd post this thread here because Ferrari started using aluminum since the 360 so I'm hoping some of you have gone through this type of repair before.

I've read that very few facilities are "approved" to fix aluminum. I assume I would need to take it to a dealer, or are high-end bodyshops good enough? I assume any shop that can work on a 360 Modena is experienced enough in fixing aluminum?

What about Paintless Dent Removal? Does it work on aluminum? How much it cost? How does it work? It seems like it'd be easy to just lift up the hood, get a mallet, and "bang out" the dent. Is aluminum too brittle for this crude method?

Finally, I'm hoping that my insurance realizes the BMW's hood is aluminum and accounts for it in the estimate. Has anyone here have an experience where insurance didn't estimate it enough because they didn't realize the car was aluminum? (Perhaps when the 360 first came out?) The insurance company's bodyshop is their own measuring stick for estimates - but if their bodyshop can't fix aluminum, do they declare it a total loss?

Thanks,
Rich

 

Paintless dent removal should work. It won't cost you anything to at least ask the dent-removal guy if he can fix it or not.