My TII cab was written off by my insurers following a collision in early June caused by a 17 year old on a motorbike.
The insurance was a cherished car policy through Adrian Flux, the insurers were a company called QBE Insurance.
I thought the premium reasonable and the service from Adrian Flux was fine. However, when it came to the claim, QBE were, in my opinion, appalling. To cut a long story short, the process took nearly three months from accident to final settlement. They never seemed to do anything unless I telephoned and hung on through the phone queueing system. In contrast, my everyday car was written off (again not my fault, honest!) a few years ago but on that occasion I had a cheque for a very generous amount in my hand within five days.
The point of this tale is to ask for any recommendations based on claims experiences as well as premiums. I sincerely hope not to be claiming again but I have learned a lesson, there\'s more to this business than saving a few quid on the premium.
NIG took 6 months to pay out my claim in 2006 (complicated case, over 8 third parties, legal claims etc!! - daily phone calls in the end etc); 6 weeks in 2007 (clear cut non-fault accident).
Adrian Flux took about 10 weeks to pay out on my wifes car, another clear cut non-fault case. I think it depends on the third party liability, and if their insurance co try an wrangle.
When my last FD was written off, Flux did almost 1% of f*** all to help out or get things moving. Basically, once the underwriters wrote the car off, they had no interest whatsoever in processing the claim, said it was all down to Highway to deal with as the Insurers. The only way I got the claim sorted was by telephoning Highway EVERY day until they gave me money to leave them alone :D.
The first offer they made was £3500, :eek: which I obviously refused, then I had to go through all the ball-ache of proving the car was worth more by deluging them with for sale ads of equivalent quality cars (fiortunately this was before prices slid as far as they have now), but my broker did absolutely none of this on my behalf. They had the cheek to write to me about three months after the claim was settled (which took about two months in total) to ask if I was satisfied with their service! I wrote back and said yeah, I was so satisfied I moved to another broker as soon as I possibly could!
More horror stories. Is there nobody who can say \'I had a claim and it was sorted quickly and efficiently\'?
I doubt it very much! :(
I feel the same as the OP. If it\'s a matter of a couple of hundred quid a year I\'d be happy to pay a higher premium for a good insurance company who will actually work for me.
I made the mistake years ago when I brought my 323F of taking out Mazda\'s own insurance as it was cheap on a new car. Then my car got broken into on Christmas Day - they were closed until the New Year and then said that the Mazda dealer who I had brought the car (and the insurance) from were not on their list of approved repairers!
I\'m now really careful to check the terms of my policy and I won\'t necessarily always go with the cheapest. Very difficult to know how much agro you\'ll have until it happens however.