Insurance claims - why are they so freakin' complicated

Off-topic
1

So just to get it off my chest, why the hell are insurance claims with a motorbike an absolute arse and there is such a sense of total urgency???Arrggggghhhhhhhhh

So accident at the end of January, every intermidary under the sun was crawling up my rear poop hole to offer me bike hire, personal injury claim, medical assistance and pick up of bike for inspection in the first 48hrs whilst I was in hospital. Now almost 3 months later, I have only just got a valuation offer on bike, still have more paperwork to send back and being told that we will have to wait for up to 6 months before the claim is settled due to a police investigation into the other party - who I know witnesses have identified at being at fault. So no bike, no money, no transport and a mounting envelope with all my travel expenses continuing to grow. What the hell is fully comp for and why do the insurance seem to do bugger all and it’s left with a solicitor to deal with??? Don’t even get me started on the additional clothing cover as that is a waste of money as solicitor is claiming for this anyway.

When I have had any accident in the car, also with fully comp, I called them claim form sent out and car taken with completed claim form to a approved garage and work was authorised next day. Car generally back in the next week with hire car to use in the period between. Is this protracted process the experience of others when they have had an accident??

Can’t tell you how this is winding me up day by day…:angry: the industry blames mounting premiums on the personal injury culture, but who the hell passes the git’s the leads as soon as you make a claim! So when the broker gets their commission for every referral, that ends up with a injury claim on every single accident (I had one for whiplash against me when it was not even walking speed impact years ago) no wonder we as the consumer ends up paying more! So whose is actually responsible for the increase in personal injury claims???

2

In many cases the insurance companies sell your details to accident management firms, hence the reason you get loads of calls, or they will auction off your case to the highest bidder.

I can give you details of half a dozen accident management firms who pay quite a lot of money to insurers to be notified of personal injury claims coming in, and even then they are not that accurate as I have had a few phone calls recently telling me thay can handle my PI claim even thouugh the last time I was injured in a crash was over 20 years ago.

If you get any more calls, just tell the caller that you work in personal injury law and therefore have no intention on passing them on when you or a colleague can deal with it yourselves :wink:

They tend to put the phone down quite quickly after that.

3

Thanks TC, agree completely with your comments and no surprise that there is money being passed through the chain - increasing premiums!! Have calmed down now and accepted that I will have to wait for up to 6 months before I recieve a payout, hoping that the Police report is released sooner though. Until that point I am stuck and certainly not going to accept a 50/50 offer.:frowning:

4

The Longer they drag these things out, the more money they all make…my no fault prang in April 2009 took 18 months to settle…:crazy:My legals went to their legals with a £2K Personal injury claim during the 1st few months…that was rejected yet 12 months later they paid out £5K! :crazy:

My fully comp insurance paid for bike repairs and bike hire…12 weeks and a thousand phone calls later… bike returned reapr cost £3K …still not right…but now replacement bike Hire cost £8k…That’s more than the cost of actually buying me a new bike straight after the accident…:crazy:

I was given a course of private Physiotherapy before seeing a consultant…:crazy:

I dread to thnk what the total cost of the claim was, once the legals had added their bill…

And we wonder why our premiums are so high!Oh…and my phone rings at least twice a day with some money grabbing leech offering to get me compensation for my “recent” accident…:angry:

5

I witnessed an accident between a bike and a mincab. Took literally years to settle: I was interviewed at least twice by both sides and in the end, the lawyers settled (in the bikers favour) on the morning we were due in court.

6

Whilst it is frustrating when it takes so lonng to settle, you have to bear in mind, that even in cases where liability is not disputed, the third party insurers (Defendants) willl often drag things out in the hope that they can find some contributory negligence against the claimant in the hope that it will mitigate some of their losses.

I recently finished a case where liability was firmly stacked against the defendant (our client the claimant was a pedestrian), but the defendants insurers (Tesco’s) would not admit liability, would not respond to correspondence and then asked loads of questions which had already been answered numerous times just to drag things out.

We issued proceedings (3 years from date of injury) got an independent expert involved ( I could not prepare the report because of a conflict of interest), and 4 years after the original crash they caved in and paid out full liability.

Our fees were double the value of the claim because we had to work on the basis that the other side was going to go to trial which is why we had to get everything ready, but had they simply in light of all the damming evidence put their hands up, the matter would have settled within about 18 months and costs would have been minimal.

This is a common ploy by many defendant insurers, and accident management firms are even worse.

On the other side of the coin, when defendant insurers admit liability quickly, they will often look to make an offer and settle equallyh quickly because they know that if accepted, the chances are that they will have saved a considerable amount of money as the claim will in all probability have been seriously undervalued.

As a rule of thumb, minor to moderate injuries usually settle in between 12 - 18 months, moderate to serious 18 - 36 months and catastrophic (paraplegia, brain injury etc) you are looking at anything up to 5 years plus.

A lot of people blame the legal profession for the delays they experience, and in some cases this is true, but it is usually the third party insurers who like to throw the spanner in the works by using delaying tactics in the hope that the claimant will simply give up and go away.

However, once proceedings are issued, this usually focuses their minds as they know that if it goes to trial, then their costs are going to mount up big time, and I mean BIG time.