A dispute service will be asked to decide if a body corporate acted reasonably when it charged one of its members the excess on an insurance claim.

Serena Ferguson-Williams said her own insurer had already accepted the damage claim and if the body corporate had called on her policy, it would not have incurred the expense.

Instead, the organisation claimed with its insurer, incurring an excess of $2000.

The Queensland Body Corporate and Community Management Commission has made an interim order preventing the body corporate from pursuing Ms Ferguson-Williams for the charge until it considers if it is valid.

The commission says Ms Ferguson-Williams has raised a serious legal question about whether her body corporate acted unreasonably in not using her insurance.

Ms Ferguson-Williams is a co-owner of a lot at Meadowbrook, an 87-lot property. In July last year she was in a car accident that damaged a window and brick wall there.

She said her car insurer Virgin had accepted liability for damage to her car and to the property, and she paid her $1000 excess.

Requests to the body corporate to submit quotes to her insurer were ignored, she said.

In December, Virgin wrote to the body corporate, saying it could claim through its own insurer, which would incur an excess, or directly with Virgin, with no excess payable.

The commission says the body corporate claimed with its own insurer, Longitude, which decided not to pursue Virgin because the principle of subrogation precluded it from recovering sums for a person who was a beneficiary under the policy.

Since Ms Ferguson-Williams was a member of the body corporate, and a beneficiary of its insurance, she could not be pursued for reimbursement as an at-fault party.

Longitude covered the damage once the $2000 excess had been paid, and the body corporate passed the bill to Ms Ferguson-Williams, entering it into her levy account with costs of $578.

She argues this was unreasonable given her insurer was willing to cover all the damage, and has sought an order that adding the excess to her account was unreasonable and invalid.

Read the adjudication here.