Posts tagged auto express
Car Insurance Myths #1
Sep 26th
One of our colleagues came into the office today and was telling us about a holiday in gay Paris. In the course of the conversation she mentioned that a tour guide at the Arc de Triomphe had told her that no car insurance policy in the world was valid on the crazy ten-lane, twelve exit roundabout / junction that encircles the monument.
This sounded a little unlikely. Even though the junction is clearly more dangerous than most, insurance works on the basis of pooled risk, so it would be highly unusual, and probably the thin end of the wedge, if insurers started singling out even one dangerous junction and excluding cover.
What’s more, the policies we offer which provide Europe-wide car insurance cover don’t have any such specific exclusion attached to them, so the worldwide claim of the guide was definitely wrong. Some more research was in order.
Checking the internet, there were a lot of other folk who had been told the same by the Parisian guides, and repeated it on their blogs or sites, but no citation of a verifiable source. So I obtained a copy of a policy document from Macif, the largest French car insurance company. Sure enough, there are no specific exclusions listed there, so I made some further enquiries.
It turns out the the truth is rather more prosaic, but no less interesting. Owing to the complexity of the road system around the Arc de Triomphe, the insurers have an agreement to settle all claims on a knock-for-knock basis, with each company bearing 50% of the total loss. This is to avoid the protracted disputes and legal challenges, which would arise when trying to determine who was at fault for the accident.
In fact this is no different to what happens in many situations, in this country and abroad, where fault is hard to determine, or where the expense of determining who was at fault would not be worthwhile.
So, simply, the story is a myth, presumably either something has been lost in translation, or the French tour guides are having fun telling stories to the tourists.
Auto Express Survey
Jun 20th
The results are in in the Auto Express Driver Power insurance survey for 2008 and we were pleased to finish in a creditable 11th place in the survey, showing last year’s rise from 40th to 17th wasn’t just a flash in the pan.
With this result being the outcome of actual customers responses, we’re especially happy that our customers seem to have a good opinion of us, a testament to all the hard work which has been done in improving the customer experience over the last few years, even though we certainly think there’s room for further improvement.
I think the results are even better for the fact that, as a broker, a certain amount of the customer experience is out of our hands and relies on our panel of insurance providers. Particularly so when you consider that the unusual and specialist cars we often cover are much harder for the insurance companies to deal with, especially if there is a claim.
Because of that, I think the value of dealing through a decent broker is demonstrated when you see that some of the companies on our panel are languishing in the bottom 10 of the rankings – so it seems that you really can get demonstrably better value AND better service by going through a broker, despite what Direct Line would have you believe.
Of course, the broker you choose has a big impact – otherwise Endsleigh, Budget, the AA, Swinton and the Post Office wouldn’t be in the bottom ten.
And now, a la Jeremy Clarkson, I’ll explain why we actually did even better. The top four companies are all, in a way, cheating. I don’t mean that they aren’t doing really well for their customers, because they are. It’s just that if you aren’t an elderly trade union member living in the country, you won’t be able to get a quote with all four. SAGA and RIAS concentrate on the ‘mature’ markets, Frizzell targets only union (and similar organisation) members, and the winner, NFU, will only quote drivers with a rural postcode.
Obviously that’s fair enough, but it does give these companies an easier ride in the survey stakes, because they can tailor their products and their customer experience to their very specific niche. In our case, managing the conflicting expectations of classic car owners, high net worth individuals and modified jap import enthusiasts, for example, is much more of a challenge. Our staff have to learn about hundreds of products, and then have to deal with customers who are so dramatically diverse that they need treating in quite different ways. And it even comes down to things like the hold music – which everyone complains about, but for different and often opposite reasons.
So, all in all, an impressive showing, and for anyone who might have been disappointed by our service in the past: we’ve got much better – it’s official, and we’re aiming to improve even further, so perhaps it’s time to consider giving us another go.