Archive for August, 2008
The Cleanest Car in the World?
Aug 29th
Imagine the scenario – while you’re out at the office, you’ve asked the other half to fill up the car at the petrol station and, hey, while she’s there, why not give the car a jetwash?
Something not dissimilar must have transpired here, as filmed by the incredulous occupants of the car behind…
Wonder what her fella said when she got home!
I checked with our claims manager, and he reckons it’s rather unlikely that an insurance company would pay out for any damage caused by this kind of idiocy, so please don’t be tempted to try it yourself.
Dave Wilson on Google+How not to do Insurance Fraud
Aug 27th
Mark Davis of Schenectady, New York, has provided what is, quite possibly, the dumbest insurance fraud perpetrated in recent years. He rang his insurer to report a broken rear windscreen on his Mitsubishi Eclipse. Problem was it wasn’t broken, so when the loss adjuster turned up, he found it intact and rejected the claim.
Clearly this wasn’t the result Davis had been hoping for, so he called back the insurance company and asked them to check it again. The adjuster dutifully returned to the car to find that it was indeed broken. Unfortunately for our would-be fraudster, he also found a bunch of witnesses who had seen Mr Davis smashing the window in himself.
So instead of receiving his claimed $3,300 payout, the witless crook can instead instead look forwards to getting up to seven years behind bars.
The trouble with aggregators…
Aug 27th
If you have anything slightly unusual is that they can be completely unhelpful. Seeing that GoCompare had added a few specialists to their panel, like A-Plan, Express and Sureterm, I though I’d run through a quote on a lightly modified Nissan Silvia, to see what their prices were like.
Unfortunately, although it happily lets you fill in all your details, it then brings up the supremely unhelpful list below. None of their panel, specialists included, could quote it. Nice one GoCompare!
It just goes to show that if you want a quote on something even a little bit out of the ordinary, you are currently still best off leaving the aggregators for Mondeo man and giving a genuine specialist broker a call. (Our number is 08000 83 88 33)
—UPDATE 16/10 —
I think some people thought I was having a pop at either GoCompare or the specialists currently on their panel. My point was really that the aggregator model, whilst very useful in many circumstances is not any help in the many cases where there is anything even slightly unusual.
I have recommended elsewhere on this blog that customers should always try to include a mixture of aggregators, direct writers and brokers when they are shopping around – If you have a classic, modified, imported or kit car, or if you are a younger driver, have convictions, female or mature, brokers can ask the questions that aggregators can’t or don’t – and that even includes the ones I listed.