Insurance claim dispute with All**nz insurance

[LashNeo]

I have fully insured my Car with Al*i*nz insurance and it met with an accident several weeks ago. A motorcyclist crashed in to the car and damaged the front left hand side fender and scratched the buffer as well. I reported the incident onsite and the assessor who came to assess the accident approved repairs to the fender, buffer and alloy wheel. Yesterday I put the car to the repair shop to carry out the repair and they have quoted 16,000 for repairing and painting the fender and buffer. (Rs 8000 each).

Later on the day the assessor who came from the insurance company has approved 7500 each for repairing and painting the fender and buffer. But, he has mentioned that the owner would have to bare 50% of the cost for repairing the buffer plus 50% of the cost of buffer clips. That means they will only pay 3750 for the buffer repair job and I have to bare the remaining 3750. I was rather surprised about this as something like this has not happened to me before. The dent in the buffer is a minor one and it has a few scratches on the underside which were caused by previous accidents. But, usually the insurance companies would approve the full amount to paint a buffer even though the accident has caused a minor damage to the panel. This is because you cannot spot paint it and you would have to remove the panel from the vehicle and do the paint job on the entire buffer.

I was rather annoyed with this and I called upon the Head office of Al*i*nz and they told me that this is the usual practice although I have claimed the full amount from the same company in the past in similar incidents.

Is this something new introduced by insurance companies? Has anyone faced a similar incident before with other insurance companies? 

[Quiet]

usually there is some sort of deduction when it comes to used vehicles. But im not sure that applies to paint jobs. Normally reduction is for parts replacements as far as i know.

[LashNeo]

4 minutes ago, Quiet said:

usually there is some sort of deduction when it comes to used vehicles. But im not sure that applies to paint jobs. Normally reduction is for parts replacements as far as i know.

Yep. that's the same scenario i'm also familiar with. Usually they deduct a percentage based on the age of the vehicle for replacement parts and therefore i have no issues with deduction on buffer clips. But never experienced a deduction on a paint job before. That's why i'm worried.

[vishkid]

I've never seen a deduction on a paint job from (from a couple of different insurers, on my 2004 Mazda). They may negotiate with the garage on the per panel cost and that's it. Parts are a different story for the older vehicles, never paint.

[LashNeo]

On 1/24/2018 at 12:48 AM, vishkid said:

I've never seen a deduction on a paint job from (from a couple of different insurers, on my 2004 Mazda). They may negotiate with the garage on the per panel cost and that's it. Parts are a different story for the older vehicles, never paint.

Yup. its been the same with all the friends and colleagues i know as well. I will be heading to Al*i*nz in few days with the claim documents and will be raising hell if they don't give me the due compensation.

[ae100]

From what I've experienced, insurance claims for accidents work well for you if you just speak nicely to the assessor on the spot. The process goes really bad if you show a bad attitude to the assessor.

Your incident initially seems a straightforward one where most of the insurance companies would just pay the full amount of the repair. If the claim process has become a bitter experience already, then chances are the assessor or someone in the insurance company got annoyed / irritated on the way you might have treated them.

Of course there's a legal and a formal procedure to deal with disputes etc, but the insurance company may find a clause on the fine print of your policy document to back their stand on not paying / short-paying a claim.

You can go to the managing director of the insurance company and shout, but remember, their main priority is to defend their own colleagues, and work towards the best profits for the insurance company.

Good luck "raising hell"..!

[LashNeo]

Well.. I had no issues with the assessor who did the on the spot assessment. He was a very polite fellow who noticed the damage and promptly put all the damages in the claim document which also included the damage done to the buffer.

The dispute is with the assessor who came to the garage to assess the repair estimate prepared by the garage once i put the car for repairs several weeks later. He has mentioned that the owner has to pay 50% of the repair cost of the buffer repair. At the time he visited the garage i was not even there so how can i show a bad attitude towards him without even seeing the fellow??. 

So please do not make false assumptions and for your information i have also made several motor claims during last 12+ years without any issues.

I have already informed this to the agent who sold me the policy and he said that the assessor who visited the garage seems to have messed up things and he will do his best to correct things.

The main duty of the managing director of a company is to protect his customers not to hide errors of his employees/colleagues.

And if you don't have the guts to raise hell  for your rights; Good luck being a flimsy

 

Edited January 26, 2018 by LashNeo

[Crosswind]

4 hours ago, ae100 said:

From what I've experienced, insurance claims for accidents work well for you if you just speak nicely to the assessor on the spot. The process goes really bad if you show a bad attitude to the assessor.

Your incident initially seems a straightforward one where most of the insurance companies would just pay the full amount of the repair. If the claim process has become a bitter experience already, then chances are the assessor or someone in the insurance company got annoyed / irritated on the way you might have treated them.

Of course there's a legal and a formal procedure to deal with disputes etc, but the insurance company may find a clause on the fine print of your policy document to back their stand on not paying / short-paying a claim.

You can go to the managing director of the insurance company and shout, but remember, their main priority is to defend their own colleagues, and work towards the best profits for the insurance company.

Good luck "raising hell"..!

Lashneo has given you the long answer.

Let me give you the short answer to this: You are speaking out of your a$$.

 

[ae100]

3 hours ago, LashNeo said:

Well.. I had no issues with the assessor who did the on the spot assessment. He was a very polite fellow who noticed the damage and promptly put all the damages in the claim document which also included the damage done to the buffer.

The dispute is with the assessor who came to the garage to assess the repair estimate prepared by the garage once i put the car for repairs several weeks later. He has mentioned that the owner has to pay 50% of the repair cost of the buffer repair. At the time he visited the garage i was not even there so how can i show a bad attitude towards him without even seeing the fellow??. 

So please do not make false assumptions and for your information i have also made several motor claims during last 12+ years without any issues.

I have already informed this to the agent who sold me the policy and he said that the assessor who visited the garage seems to have messed up things and he will do his best to correct things.

The main duty of the managing director of a company is to protect his customers not to hide errors of his employees/colleagues.

And if you don't have the guts to raise hell  for your rights; Good luck being a flimsy

 

My bad sounding like a hypocrite. I assumed you were as stupid as I was when I dealt with a similar situation with an insurer.

What I've learnt from my situation (actually speaking to a director of the insurance company with the intention of raising hell for my rights) was that they don't care about the so called "protecting the customer", and if you don't handle the situation with the right politics, there's a high chance of the insurer sticking to his stance.

Just my opinion. Not applicable to all situations. 

Good luck.. ! (seriously..)