Hybrid System Failure after cooling system repair?

Two weeks ago a large, industrial truck dropped a piece of bent steel pipe on the interstate in front of my 2010, 50k miles, Prius and (sadly) I was forced to hit or swerve into rush hour traffic and cause an accident. It tore up a good part of the cooling system and did some body damage. Of course I didn't know this at the time, but it began to overheat, so I pulled off the freeway and had it towed to a body shop. After about ten days and $5,000 worth of parts and labor I got my Prius back. Fortunately, this was all covered by comprehensive insurance plan.

Six days after getting it back I'm driving on the freeway and the check engine light comes on. Then within seconds the display begins to read Hybrid System Failure and I am forced to coast to the nearest exit.

My question for this group is what are the chances that this Hybrid System Failure is NOT somehow related to the work performed on my car a week earlier? Today is Easter and everything is closed, but the State Farm insurance hotline is not entirely convinced (at least not yet), and won't subsidize the price of the rental I need to get to work tomorrow.

Per State Farm, the car will be towed back to the same body shop in the morning in an attempt to "get it right". My biggest fear is that they will somehow say it isn't the result of their work and that this is just a coincidental malfunction. Any thoughts on how the two are related (or not)?

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Thanks xliderider. Shouldn't I have expected to see an overheating error light if that was the case? The display was loaded with warning lights, but I specifically remember the temperature gauge was not one of them.

 

Thank you for the replies everyone.

The repair facility will be taking a look at it today; however, when I mentioned the inverter as the possible problem he immediately said they checked it when the car was originally assessed and it was fine, and that he sees "coincidental things all the time". Ugh, looks like this is going to get complicated between me, the repair facility and State Farm. I'm beginning to think I'll be on the losing end.

 

Yeah, I'm being proactive about this. I've arranged to have an independent State Farm mechanic analyze it as well, in the event that the repair facility claims this is only coincidental.