Is car insurance always like this?

I have found that insurance companies jump to attention when the Ombudsman is mentioned

Stephen,

You have my sympathies. As a former employee of an insurance company (in the IT dept, nothing to do with claims etc.) I can confirm that, sadly, yours is not an isolated case.

If your claim does not fit the 'normal' claim criteria then the tele-tubbies in the call-centre are stuck. They are not generally over endowed with active brain cells and struggle when they have to deviate from their scripts.

I am surprised that their legal dept has got involved at this stage. A chat to a claims supervisor should be enough to sort out the problem, even if they do not have the authority to sort it out they should be able to escalate it to someone who can.

I can only see more phone calls and frustration ahead of you before it is resolved.

My most frustrating experience whas when our car was bashed in a car-park. Fortunately, the driver who hit our car admitted responsibilty (in my experience they usually do a runner)and as we were not even in the car at the time it was a very clear case of who was to blame. The cost of repairing both cars was £1400 so the other driver wanted to claim rather than pay for the repairs himself. We had to claim our own insurance for the repairs to our car and then our company would recover the costs from his insurance company. After we had claimed from our ins. company but before they had recovered the costs from the other driver's company our insurance came up for renewal. Guess what? yes, we had lost our no-claims bonus and had to pay another £350 for insurance. This was purely due to the timing of the claims an our insurance renewal date. And guess what, you don't get refunded the extra cost when your insurance company recovers the costs anyway.

Thats why people still need insurance brokers.

Regards

Mike

On the Yellow Brick Road and Happy

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Originally posted by BLT:
My most frustrating experience whas when our car was bashed in a car-park. Fortunately, the driver who hit our car admitted responsibilty (in my experience they usually do a runner)and as we were not even in the car at the time it was a very clear case of who was to blame. The cost of repairing both cars was £1400 so the other driver wanted to claim rather than pay for the repairs himself. We had to claim our own insurance for the repairs to our car and then our company would recover the costs from his insurance company. After we had claimed from our ins. company but before they had recovered the costs from the other driver's company our insurance came up for renewal. Guess what? yes, we had lost our no-claims bonus and had to pay another £350 for insurance. This was purely due to the timing of the claims an our insurance renewal date. And guess what, you don't get refunded the extra cost when your insurance company recovers the costs anyway.

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This happened to me just under 12 months ago. I had protected no-claims, but as I was changing insurance companies I had to declare that I had a non-fault accident pending. This meant that although my new insurance was a lot cheaper than previously (they accepted my no-claims as full), there was a loading for the non-fault claim (about £150). When the claim was finally settled by my previous insurer and I had been sent a cheque for the excess I had had to pay, I got in contact with the new insurer and they removed my non-fault claim and sent me a pro-rata cheque for the extra £150 I had paid.

What was annoying about his whole process, is that my brokers did nowt to help me. I had to do all the running around and phone call making. On the day I made the claim, I had to give details of the accident to 1). The Broker, 2). The Loss Adjuster, 3). The Car Hire firm, 4). The actual insurer themselves, and 5). The 3rd parties insurer. This was a joke. I am sure that this is the work you pay the broker to do.

Regards

Mark ;0)

Name names, chaps. Save some other poor sods the trouble of dealing with these sharks.

Davie

Names? Just start at the beginning of the insurance section in the yellow pages and work your way to the end!

Tony

Stephen,

You seem to be making a mountain out of a mole hill.

First of all, you don't need to use their approved repair centres. You have total choice where you take your car. If you don't use their approved centre, you will need two quotes. Take your car to a Toyota dealer of your choice and ask them to give you a quotation in writing. Explain that the insurer needs two quotes and the Toyota garage will usually sort this out for you, (as they want your business). All the garages work together and do this every day of the week.

If you care how the paint job is done, do have a close look at some work the garage has finished.

Doing it this way may take a little longer, but you get the job done correctly.

Just to end on a sour note, your car will never, never, never be the same again. The paint used for repairs cannot match the wear characteristics of the factory finish and on top of that, garages very rarely prepare the surface properly (if ever).

Just keep that in your mind when you're claiming for the hassle and damage that the twat that drove into the back of you has caused you.

You said it would get worse.......

I got a letter from my insurance company today. 'We have no proof of your no claims bonus (I'm supposedly on a protected full no-claims). Please let us have the details of your previous policy etc.'. I've been with them 8 months - they didn't ask me this when I got insurance from them, when I still had the details. I can't even remember who I was with before. It also says on the letter 'Insurance companies share data....'. They say I have to get these details to them in 10 days.

Surely it's the new companies responsibility to get this data? They say the can't. What does this mean for my Insurance over the last months?

:-(

Stephen

PS countd - they wont accept two Toyota quotes. Molehill?

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PS countd - they wont accept two Toyota quotes

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I never said two Toyota quotes.

End of help.

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Surely it's the new companies responsibility to get this data? They say the can't. What does this mean for my Insurance over the last months?

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errr... no it isn't. Read your policy documents. They take what you tell them in good faith but quite clearly state that you may be asked to provide evidence of any no claims bonus. Surely you still have your last policy document? Nobody throws away important stuff like that do they? Even if you don't, as long as you can manage to remember who you last gave a large some of insurance money to (try checking your bank statement) they will send you proof if you call and ask.

Sorry to hear of your problems.
I have been as well, not fun.
I ended up chewing through several claim's agents before dealing with a supervisor, finally got things squared away. I was not too happy with the result, but it was better than the rapeing they were trying for initially.

And the industy can't figure out why fraud is so common....maybe because you have to pad the claim just to come out even....just hope I don't have to go thru the system again, because I will be sorly tempted.....

regards,

michael

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Originally posted by count.d:

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PS countd - they wont accept two Toyota quotes

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I never said two Toyota quotes.

End of help.

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Ah, sorry. But no one else will give me a quote as I'm having the work done by Toyota!

Regards

Stephen

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Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

Ah, sorry. But no one else will give me a quote as I'm having the work done by Toyota!

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the point is that you don't tell them that when you're asking for a quote.

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Originally posted by John Sheridan:

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Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

Ah, sorry. But no one else will give me a quote as I'm having the work done by Toyota!

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the point is that you don't tell them that when you're asking for a quote.

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So you are suggesting that, in order to get this problem solved, I'll have to lie to a repairer when they ask me who will be doing the repair? Because they will (and have) assumed that, as it's a new car, I'll be going to the Toyota garage.

Surely this isn't right! My annoyance in all this is that my insurance company are behaving as if this is my problem and one they haven't come across before.

regards

Stephen

Well Stephen

There seem to be three sets of principles at work here.

The insurance company. Whos principle is to persaude you to use their repairer. They can't force you, but they will make life miserable in an attempt to persuade you. No doubt they find its cheaper to get repairs done 'in-house'.

The Toyota car company. Who seem to want to get rid of their warranty obligations as soon as look at you. Presumably the insurance company's repairer will do a perfectly good repair job, so why are Toyota being so difficult?

You. Who as a matter of principle seems unwilling to wait until AFTER you have got a few quotes before deciding how best to proceed.

I think you will find it easier to modify the last principle (yours) rather than waste time and effort in trying to right the wrongs of big bussiness.

Adopt my suggestion, get quotes first, which should include any conditions eg 3 year warranty on the repair/whole car. Only THEN decide which offers YOU the best deal.....

Cheers

Don

and Stephen

When the insurance company DOES agree to Toyota doing the job, make sure its the FULL MONTY and not some cheap cut-down version ageed between them as a 'special deal'

Cheers

Don

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Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

You. Who as a matter of principle seems unwilling to wait until AFTER you have got a few quotes before deciding how best to proceed.

Don

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Not sure where you got that from. I have principles, but that isn't one of my strongly held ones!

:-)

If you can suggest a way to get anyone to give me a quote that would make my insurance company happy without me telling porkys, I'd love to hear it. I've called four garages so far and they all ask 'will we be doing the repairs.'

Just to remind you that someone ran into me! Surely you can't blame me for feeling a little frustrated. I either have to haggle with Toyota, garages or my own insurance company. This is even before I get onto to getting the other guy to pay .....

Regards

Stephen

If you can suggest a way to get anyone to give me a quote that would make my insurance company happy without me telling porkys, I'd love to hear it. I've called four garages so far and they all ask 'will we be doing the repairs.'

First, you are not trying to get quotes for the sole purpose of making your insurance company happy (or the sod who crashed into you!). You are only getting quotes to demonstrate to those involved that you are acting reasonably. Keep an open mind, somebody MIGHT offer a first-class job AND to take on the rest of your warranty, ALL at a better price than Toyota. And pigs might fly.

Second, I am not suggesting you tell porkies. You are under no obligation to tell anybody what your preferences might be at any one time. Just ask them to quote for a real job and to mind their own business.

Third, when a garage asks 'will we be doing the repairs?', tell them that depends entirely on the their written offer. No need to add any further explanation. They have no right to expect to be the sucessful contractor, even if you only approached one garage with every intention of giving them the job.

The offer from Toyota, as I understand it, is a good one, and probably unbeatable. Who else is going to fix the car properly AND sustain the warranty. But keep an open mind.

I think your insurance company etc are being very proper (I know it doesn't seem like it.....) but just imagine you had caused the accident and the other guy ran up a rediculous bill of repairs to his car, at his "mate's" garage. I bet you and your insurance company would like to see a couple of alternative quotes......

....and to answer your original question, is this normal.....ie pressure to use the insurer's nominated repairer.......yes, with many insurance companies-yes.......just tell them that their proposal isn't good enough....that's also normal.

Cheers

Don

Thanks everyone.

I'll let you know how it resolves.

Regards

Stephen