British Expats - Car Mechanics help please

LIttle while back the wife had yet another tiny little bingle.

I'm slightly worried that my insurance company isnt going to replace a component, problem is I dont know exactly what the component is or what its called.

The accident was on the left hand front side of a ford falcon, smashed the headlight and a small amount of panel damage. This is where it gets interesting... the guard over the front part of the front wheel came of exposing some unknown components to the elements. One of these was a air filter (I think) to do with the cooling system I'm guessing. It was a black box, that came loose and got smashed on the road... the reason I'm sure it's some kind of air filter, is it had little bits of black charcol like substance in it and two hoses attached. This component came off two days later and the way it came off and the fact that all the housing around it got smashed in the process makes me think they haven't accounted for this in the repair cost of circa 1100 bucks.

So does anyone know the name of this component which is situated near the front left headlight under the front of the wheel arch, so I can check to see if its going to be fixed please ? Like I said I think its an airfilter for the heating and cooling system.

Many thanks for your help. My Mechanic is on holiday until next week so I cant check with him.

BTW the box would have measured about 5inches by 9 inches by 1.5 inches deep..... so it wasnt exactly small.