MoneySaving Poll: Have you ever 'tweaked the truth' on an insurance claim?

When I entered the insurance industry as a green behind the ears graduate, donkey's years ago, integrity was the watchword for all our dealings with the customer. If our marketing department had fiddled with a policy wording and created a loophole, that was our tough luck. We didn't need any FOS to tell us that. We self policed.

My role was a selling one. That meant I sold promises to pay. Another part of my role was dealing with any complaint arising out of disputes about what I had sold. Can you imagine that now?

On behalf of the client, I would argue the case with the claims department. I was exceptionally well-trained to do so. The exams I was encouraged to take led to far higher qualification and understanding than the simple tick-box certificates which are banded about in the industry now.

I would point out the loopholes in wordings to claims department through which coaches and horses could be driven. And if I was technically right, we paid up, pronto, even if it wasn't quite what the marketing department had in mind with their tweaked wording, and even if the customer in their heart of hearts knew they were lucky to have someone like me arguing for them. But that was how the best insurers worked.

At that time I received a 10% commission on any home or car insurances I sold to friends and family, just the same as many of the high street insurance brokers were paid by my company (not very much you will notice in today's greedy terms!). I always rebated all of it to the policyholder. In my day job I received no commission at all - it was a well paid salary job.

The premiums we charged were some of the more expensive on the market. We had a reputation in the market for very fair dealing, so customers knew we were worth it.

Wide Accidental Damage cover (as opposed to Fire Lightning Burst Pipes, Explosion etc. of old) was only just beginning to take hold in the market.

In those days many more people smoked, and of course the vogue was fitted carpets throughout most peoples houses and flats!

Some of my family also smoked. More than once I was approached by family and friends to ask if they could claim on the policy I had arranged for fire damage to their fitted carpets because they had been typically careless and dropped glowing ash on one corner of the carpet on a Friday night after a few beers, and they'd heard they could get new carpets throughout the house if a repair or replacement couldn't match exactly what was there before!

I always discouraged them from making such a claim on the basis that it was clearly not the intention of fire insurance to cover that kind of carelessness. In short it was not fair dealing by the customer. It was a "try-on" and I know that for many thousands it was a successful one.

I can remember "customer wheezes" like that beginning to be more and more frequent. It was way before MSE of course, so it was the man in the pub who said you could claim for this and that!

I even suffered pangs of guilt for a few years whenever I visited my brother-in-law and sat on the sofa and looked down to the right and saw the bare patch where the cigarette burn had been. His Mum had paid for those fitted carpets when they moved into a new house. They were never quite content with their original choice of colour. Within a year they'd had the accident. In the early days of those carpets, you had to know where to look of course, but nevertheless I began to think I should not have been so straight bat and self-righteous about that claim with my own family.

Over the years those carpets of course collected more cigarette burns from more Friday nights. In a smokers house surely that was wear and tear? But because lots were claiming as a kind of revenge for the more and more prevalent immediate denial of claims as an industry normal first response, or getting caught out by serious reductions of claim amounts by loss adjusters who had no better way of proving their business was better than competitors than reducing claims costs and thereby gaining more loss adjusting business from their Claims Manager contacts.

So the market declined into the almost totally price-driven insurer versus customer type arena it is now.

Fast forward 40 years from when I started, and the market culture is turned on its head. The industry is no longer interested in upholding principles. It is not interested in upholding any reputation beyond that required to maximise its short term profit. It is solely interested in profit in every transaction. It has no compunction about deflecting claims as a first response, knowing that is enough to completely discourage a large number of claims.

All of us have to battle through that first line as a norm, no matter how big or household name the insurer is. We know it. We are changed by it.

Most of the adult population has been obliged to year after year interact with the insurance industry through compulsory motor insurance if not through sensible insurance of our homes. The way customer service and claims service has changed and been outsourced and cheapened is enormous.

It sounds corny, but the culture changes in the insurance industry over decades have greatly affected UK culture generally. All is fair in love and dealings with insurance companies is now a valid thread through our culture. And all is fair in seeking maximum profit for shareholders in any way possible that is not going to put us out of business next week is the culture of the insurance companies.

I watched a movie last night which I thought examined moral principles in a developing business very well - "A Most Violent Year".

The lead character (who was driven to grow his business as fast as he knew how) was by the end of the movie presented as an acceptable hero, because, as he put it to the policeman who had been tasked with investigating inherent fraud in the industry and had targeted our hero's business, he always tried to follow "the most right path". And he was not the only businessman in the story who also had their own interpretation of "the most right path" and who we as the audience were also invited to accept, or not as "good guys" or "firm but fair" or "weak and stupid" or "nasty but not without good reason" or "collateral damage".

In a way, is that not what we MSE'ers try to achieve most days in the face of the baddies ? Find the most right path ?