In reply to 59fsp :
I suspect some folks would NOT want a payout going to the normal "bills" bank account. Some folks hide money from their spouse..
In reply to 59fsp :
I suspect some folks would NOT want a payout going to the normal "bills" bank account. Some folks hide money from their spouse..
My company uses a phone technology service that is based in TX. Ergo, our phone numbers show up as TX numbers even though I am in PA. Yes, it's annoying.
Direct Repair Shops: I have a love/hate relationship with the concept. IF the company would select only shops that did the best work and had good service, it would be perfect. But they don't. And we are strongly encouraged to 'sell' the DRP shops to the customer, because numbers. We have scripts that are carefully worded to 'promote' the program but not get us in trouble with the state insurance department. Being a 'temp' in the claim rep position, IDGAF and offer it first but if a person has their own shop they prefer, well, go ahead and take it there. 
As for the warranty, the DRP contract the shop signs does require them to warranty the work. The insurance company doesn't warranty it, but we can make their lives miserable if they choose not to. I did force one shop to buy a customer's car they basically destroyed thanks to a bad tech who was on his way out the door. So, there is some advantage to using the DRP shop if you have no preference.
dean, check your policy. Many policies do provide physical damage coverage for a rental. It would be under the "temporary substitute" or similar language. It has a time limitation, but it's there.
This is not the case in my state. As it was explained to me if you drive a 5k car with FTC your insurance coverage is based on you totaling a 5k car. You then get a rental that is worth 20k. You current coverage will only cover 5k. The way rental coverage is written is that they only have to cover the cost of the rent of the car they are not obligated to provide insurance on the rental.
I disagree about Agents being the problem. My agent has been instrumental in getting things taken care of and untangling the system for me. The fact that she sells a lot of policy's gives her much more leverage than me. If she asks or complains they listen.
I just went through this. My car was totaled, and I was very happy with the end result. The journey there left a few opportunities for improvement, which were all customer service related.
When I reported the accident it went quickly and I was assigned a claims number and contact. It started off well but after a few days I could tell there were going to be some hiccups.
What I would have preferred from the beginning was an FYI email or phone call. This is the process, this is what we will do, this is what we expect of you, this is the timeline, and here is your contact if something goes wrong. What I got was shuffled between a handful of people on my way to being assigned a claims processor. My own agent said they would contact me 7 days after the initiation of the claim to follow up on the progress, and they didn't. The claims girl would sporadically contact me via phone, and would only ever respond to an email via a phone call, even after I told her I would prefer to do business though email only. It was not possible for me to contact her directly, only leave a message.
After I told her where to have the car towed for appraisal and possible repair - one of their preferred shops, it sat in the compound for two weeks before I intervened and requested it be towed to my house. At this point she panicked and tried to have it taken to the shop. To their credit, the tow company told her, it's his car, he's the customer, we don't care what you want, it's going to his house. This really expedited the process, and actually worked out very much in my favour, but it should have never happened.
The frustrating thing for me was the poor communication. She may have been overwhelmed with work, or just forgotten about my car, but that doesn't matter. Once I had the car the appraiser was here within a few days, did his thing, but the communication stopped again, and I didn't hear anything for a few weeks. At that point I got the payout offer and accepted. What could have taken a week, and I was in no rush, took over a month and I was given only the bare minimum information during the process. I had another car to drive in the meantime, but a lot of people don't.
dean1484 said:dean, check your policy. Many policies do provide physical damage coverage for a rental. It would be under the "temporary substitute" or similar language. It has a time limitation, but it's there.
This is not the case in my state. As it was explained to me if you drive a 5k car with FTC your insurance coverage is based on you totaling a 5k car. You then get a rental that is worth 20k. You current coverage will only cover 5k. The way rental coverage is written is that they only have to cover the cost of the rent of the car they are not obligated to provide insurance on the rental.
I disagree about Agents being the problem. My agent has been instrumental in getting things taken care of and untangling the system for me. The fact that she sells a lot of policy's gives her much more leverage than me. If she asks or complains they listen.
At least with State Farm, agents can't "do" anything. Unless they were handling a small claim under Agent Draft Authority, ie claims that will be no larger than $5k. And were handling it out of their office.
Sure they could call the claims office and complain, but it's not like they were able to force a claim rep to cover something that isn't covered, pay more than the limits, or anything like that.
Everyone really needs to read their policies.
Duke said:Streetwiseguy said:Auto insurance is a Kobayashi Maru.
"Hi, I crashed my three year old car that I paid $50k for new."
"Here's a check for $20K."
"Boo."
Depreciation is NOT the insurance company's fault.
No, its not. However, that is where a lot of angst comes from. I had what I considered to be a new car, even though it was three years old. I've wrecked it, and now the insurance company won't give me what I think its worth, because its not worth that because its not new anymore but I still owe $30k.
Or, I have a really well maintained 20 year old car that I've put a boatload of time and work into, and the insurance payout doesn't come close.
No win scenario. Insurance company is generally correct-ish, but the owner is not happy.
Streetwiseguy said:Duke said:Streetwiseguy said:Auto insurance is a Kobayashi Maru.
"Hi, I crashed my three year old car that I paid $50k for new."
"Here's a check for $20K."
"Boo."
Depreciation is NOT the insurance company's fault.
No, its not. However, that is where a lot of angst comes from. I had what I considered to be a new car, even though it was three years old. I've wrecked it, and now the insurance company won't give me what I think its worth, because its not worth that because its not new anymore but I still owe $30k.
Or, I have a really well maintained 20 year old car that I've put a boatload of time and work into, and the insurance payout doesn't come close.
No win scenario. Insurance company is generally correct-ish, but the owner is not happy.
In both those cases the owner really should speak with the insurance company before they crash. Especially the second case. That is where agreed upon coverage should be used.
Streetwiseguy said:Duke said:Streetwiseguy said:Auto insurance is a Kobayashi Maru.
"Hi, I crashed my three year old car that I paid $50k for new."
"Here's a check for $20K."
"Boo."
Depreciation is NOT the insurance company's fault.
No, its not. However, that is where a lot of angst comes from. I had what I considered to be a new car, even though it was three years old. I've wrecked it, and now the insurance company won't give me what I think its worth, because its not worth that because its not new anymore but I still owe $30k.
That is absolutely and literally NOT the insurance company's fault or problem.
Now, I agree completely with the discussion about proper and correct valuation - that's not the issue here. For this part of the discussion, we'll assume that the valuation is fair based on actual market comparables.
Lack of understanding how the market works on the owner's part is not a failure of the insurance company.
Or, I have a really well maintained 20 year old car that I've put a boatload of time and work into, and the insurance payout doesn't come close.
That is exactly what Stated Value policies or specialty insurance are for. But you don't get to pay 20-year-old-beater premiums and then expect Bring-A-Trailer payouts if the car gets totaled. Again, failure to understand on the part of the owner is not necessarily the insurance company's fault.
No win scenario. Insurance company is generally correct-ish, but the owner is not happy.
No, I submit that the insurance company is perfectly correct and the owner is ignorant of reality.
Back on topic, if I may, I just submitted another claim to the insurance company. This time it was a glass claim for a cracked windshield. The process was pretty painless, overall:
1. Logged in to the website and clicked on the "claim" button
2. Selected the vehicle and the claim type
3. Put in contact info, when the loss occurred, and stuff like that
4. Selected the option to choose my own glass vendor.
5. They sent my info to the glass company.
6. Within about an hour or two, the glass company called me back.
I was busy and didn't have time to call them until today. It's all scheduled with them now. I suspect if I had used their supplier, Safelite, I could have done more on the website, but I wanted to support the local place since they've done good work for my family for decades. The only complaint I have - and it's totally minor! - is that the glass place needed me to provide the VIN for the vehicle so they could get the right windshield. The insurance company has that info already and could have sent it along with the claim. Although, the more I think about it, if I was running the glass shop I would probably call to verify that anyway just in case things got screwed up.
Overall, very painless procedure and a model that should be copied!
In reply to Duke :
I think he pretty much agreed with you except for the correct-ish part, which I would generally agree with. Look at the number of people in this thread bitching about how poorly the insurance companies valued their car. In my experience it's pretty common for them to come out with a low or completely out to lunch offer.
In reply to Mr. Peabody :
Maybe I misread his initial post, then. I interpreted it as him saying that this was a place where insurance companies needed improvement.
I was making the counterpoint that this is a place where owners need improvement. But again, I could well be wrong in my understanding of SWG's original post.
I think his point was that the process seems to be an exercise in frustration.
Bringing this back up, because policy decisions are driven by claims.
We own a 2011 Audi S4. We've had it for 2 years. Our current insurer suddenly wants double to insure it (but not anything else on the same policy) on this renewal. This new rate (for driven less than 3K/year, married middle-agers with non-driving-age kids who each have a DD insured on the same policy) is more than the cost of full coverage on the 2006 Cayenne S and 2020 Q5 e combined. Okay, so apparently this particular model car had a bunch of claims and now the insurer is gouging the rest of us.
So the feedback is, if you (the insurer) suddenly pay out a bunch of claims on (insert random car here), making those of us who did not have claims on it pay for it makes us upset. And yes, it is just *this car*, our policy is not going up at all on the other cars. We've never had a claim on this car, either.
As some of you know I have a new claim from my trip. Would you like me to chronicle it here? So far it's been simple. I called them about 20 minutes after the accident once I got to a safe place and they took down info. I was found at fault. Well yeah I expected that since single car accident. Can't blame the boogie man or anything. I told them I'd set up an inspection once I got back to FL. This morning they called but I was still asleep. I scheduled the inspection online for a week from Friday. So far what I'd expect.
Javelin said:Bringing this back up, because policy decisions are driven by claims.
We own a 2011 Audi S4. We've had it for 2 years. Our current insurer suddenly wants double to insure it (but not anything else on the same policy) on this renewal. This new rate (for driven less than 3K/year, married middle-agers with non-driving-age kids who each have a DD insured on the same policy) is more than the cost of full coverage on the 2006 Cayenne S and 2020 Q5 e combined. Okay, so apparently this particular model car had a bunch of claims and now the insurer is gouging the rest of us.
So the feedback is, if you (the insurer) suddenly pay out a bunch of claims on (insert random car here), making those of us who did not have claims on it pay for it makes us upset. And yes, it is just *this car*, our policy is not going up at all on the other cars. We've never had a claim on this car, either.
I hear you, and I'm not an underwriter so I'm not going to get super far into the weeds on that. However, the entire principal of insurance is a group of people (policyholders) who pool their money together in a common "pot" (the carrier) to help mitigate their risk. If/when a group of people in the pot with a similar risk factor (i.e. the S4) suddenly start causing a lot of money to be pulled from that common pot, naturally the keepers of the pot are going to want those with that risk factor to contribute more due to the much higher likelihood that they'll be pulling money out of the pot. There's no way for them to be able to predict "You've got one of those high risk widgets, but I know that YOU'RE different than the rest and won't have a big liability". I'd bet that a lot of others with that same risk factor (S4) probably had good historical records before having a large loss. I think a lot of people lose sight of that basic premise of pooling money together to help a group mitigate individual risk. When someone goes and gets one of those TV lawyers to inflate a claim and take all kinds of money, who pays for it? Yes, you, the person putting money into that pot.
Since this thread came back up, I will tell you that at least for me, the feedback here did not fall on deaf ears. I came into this seeking feedback on how to improve the claim experience. A lot of the conversation was focused on total loss, which wasn't particularly what I was expecting. However, I read it all and am subsequently taking a good hard look at our process and will be making changes I feel are necessary to provide a better experience. Seriously. I appreciate all of the input.
In reply to wae :
I totally understand asking you to verify the vin. The Fiat windshield was prone to chipping and when I needed it replaced there were something ridiculous, like 6 different windshields listed for a 2013 500.
This afternoon at 1 I went in to get the body shop estimate at their preferred shop. The guy WAGed a number that I thought was about right. At 4:19pm I got an email from the body shop saying it was 40% higher than their WAG. Within minutes I got an automated message from the insurance company saying it was a total loss and offering me about 50% more than my WAG at what the truck is worth. I really don't want to be in the market buying a used truck right now so I called and asked about buy back. After being on hold a few minutes they told me the buy back is about 25% of what their totaled offer is. While I was on hold I got a text message from Copart asking me to schedule a pick up time for it. At least that was better than 6 years ago when a lady from the insurance company called and started out with "I need to know where the Miata is so that we can come get it."
Anyway I think this process has been very smooth. Honestly it's taking more time because of stuff going on in my life and me crunching numbers on if I want to buy it back. For a normal person this could have been all settled out within days of the accident.
And now almost a month later I agreed to their number with a buy back on the truck. Honestly the delay was all me as I knew I needed it this last weekend. They have been cool with sitting back and letting me "decide". My only complaint is the different forms of communication. I have their app on my phone. So if they send me a message I get a text first. If I read the text it only gives me part of what they are saying. Then I have to click on the link at the bottom to read the rest inside their app. Then about an hour later the app will pop up a message saying I have new communications. Yep it's the same message. Then later on I get an email about the same message. Apparently they partner with Copart to handle the title/pick up process. So I've been handed off to Copart to send them my title. I filled out the forms tonight and will mail the title tomorrow.
Glad to hear it. Yes, Copart handles the pickup process for every carrier that uses them. They are now branching out into handling the title process as well, which I find very beneficial for our customers.
The deep dive into my total loss process continues, specifically around valuations.
SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:The deep dive into my total loss process continues, specifically around valuations.
I've had to deal with this twice. The last time was in 2016, with State Farm and a base ex-rental Corolla. It was easy and I had no issues. There were literally hundreds of good comps.
The time before that was in 2008 with Farmers, with a manual 1998 Maxima. It was not easy. My car was as clean as could be, the mintiest 10 year old Maxima around. It was relatively low mileage as well. The comps that they gave me were terrible - automatics, double the mileage, or dented, or smokers cars, etc., and they valued it at $4,000 less than we paid 5 months and 2,300 miles prior. I went online and found 20 different cars for sale that were close to mine, but still not as minty. Almost every one was rejected by Farmers as a comp because they were more than 50 miles away - keeping in mind that, the car that we replaced the Maxima with, we drove 120 miles to buy. We eventually came to an agreed value that made us more or less happy, but it was a bunch of BS and escalating, eventually to an SVP, to get there.
Yes, unicorns can be very difficult to settle, due to the lack of comps.
Going to bring my experience to a close. I sent the title to them the 21st of April. They got it the next morning and said to expect a few days for processing. I was surprised to get a notice that it had been processed that afternoon and payment was being sent. That's good. The bad is they were sending a check. Who does that these days especially since I bank with the same company? I asked and was told that they didn't have EFT listed on my claim. Well I use EFT to pay my bill. So maybe they should have asked me during the process? The check is in the mail lasted until the next Saturday when I finally got it and 5 minutes later electronically deposited it into their bank.
That would have been the 30th. Today I got a FedEx package with them selling my truck back to me with a salvage title. I guess a little under 3 weeks to get me title after I sent it to them isn't bad. Overall I'll grade it a decent experience as I could see someone expecting that money quick could have been put into a big bind not getting it until a week later. In my case I just so happened to buy the replacement with cash two days after I sent in the title.
SKJSS,
I had a claim about 6-8 months ago and take this away from the whole deal. Took photos and uploaded them into the ins. co's web portal. Get a claims agent and (crappy) body shop assigned. Every call from the insurance company was at 6-7:00AM. I only have a cell phone and it has an eastern time zone area code. I now live in AZ, my address is in AZ, the body shop is in AZ, yet they think I live on the east coast. When I told them about the problem they just said that their computer system flags me as available on eastern time from the area code. And kept calling me at 6:00AM.
In what was great customer service by the ins co was trashed by that one thing. That and the body shop sucked.
Scott
I keep hearing about body shops getting assigned or chosen by the insurance company. I'm not sure how that works. You are supposed to choose the body shop where your car gets fixed.
At least that's how it's been for every claim I've ever seen in 40 years as a licensed driver.
In reply to Duke :
Yes, you are generally correct. The customer has the right to choose any shop they wish for repairs. Carriers can and do have "guaranteed" or "network" shops they can refer customers to and have them get an estimate. However when it comes to repair, it's the customers' choice.
I am aware of some non-standard (i.e. high risk) policies that have been written in a few states that require the customer to use a network shop. Those policies were sold at a lower premium and were optional for the customer, not mandatory. I recall a company I used to work for did that in CA. I don't know if it's still in use today.
Scott, thanks for that example. I'm working hard at utilizing technology to help streamline the claim process. The one thing I absolutely DON'T want to happen is have the technology do something as stupid as this (though this seems to be data entry error by a human).
I'm actively re-writing our total loss processes, specifically valuation of them, and using a lot of this discussion to help guide me. Thanks all!!!
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