experience of car claims with Zurich and the Financial Onbudsman...?

grahamf265

Hi,
I’d like to know what experience anyone has had of making a car insurance claim from Zurich...?
Also what experience anyone has of the Financial Onbudsman...?

Last October my car was written off, not my fault, and it took 10 weeks from the accident to the cheque arriving – I understand 4 to 6 weeks is more normal. Some of the highlights of this experience are as follows:
It took an hour to log the claim (whilst standing outside A&E with my arm in a sling) as it was through the out of hours call centre who did not have any access to my Zurich records (so I could have been absolutely anyone phoning up) and so I had to give them all my personal and policy details and then the details of the accident.
It then took 3 working days for my car to be collected from my home address, after the accident we’d been taken home by Green Flag along with the car. It took a further week for Zurich to write the car off and another week for Zurich to inform me of the settlement fee.
Rather than having Zurich as a single point of contact I had to speak to all of Zurich’s various subcontractors and agencies:
4 different Zurich Offices
2 agents for the Personal Injury Claim
1 accident repair centre
2 agencies for the courtesy car – 1 providing it and another delivering it
This would often involve repeating some or all of the accident and personal details as Zurich do not appear to provide such information to their third party service providers.
My old Insurance Policy Document went missing (I am 99.999999% sure I sent it as it was included with the V5 documents amongst others and bearing in mind in absolute incompetence of Zurich throughout this claim I’d suggest there is a far higher chance of them being at fault). One day Zurich told me they had received all of the documents and everything was as it should be. Two days later they changed their mind and apparently (I have no record of this) left me a voicemail telling me the document was missing (in my opinion just leaving a voice mail is not sufficient). Several days later I had the courtesy car agency on the phone demanding the return of the courtesy car as Zurich had told them I had not sent the policy document. I contacted Zurich who told me not to worry and they would contact the courtesy car agency, this didn’t happen and the following day I had an even more insistent agency on the phone demanding the return of the courtesy car. Zurich then told me I could send a disclaimer form, which never arrived in the post. Several days later I suggested they email me the disclaimer form, which they eventually did, but they failed to tell me it had to be counter signed by a solicitor, which took more time.
By this time I asked to log a complaint, thinking things would be escalated and speed up. Instead it took a further 4 weeks for the cheque to be issued with continued promises of progress never being met. This was followed 4 weeks later by a letter regarding my complaint, which tell me anything I didn’t already know. When I asked the Zurich representative why this had taken so long he explained it was because they had lots more complaints to deal with aside from mine, which in my opinion isn’t very customer focused.
I was then passed on to the customer relations team, making me wonder what the point of the complaints department was in the first place. Today they have offered me £150 compensation for my inconvenience, which I am now taking up with the Financial Onbudsman.
Throughout this process I have received consistently poor customer service with inconsistent messages from one Zurich agent to another and between Zurich’s agents. It has felt somewhat like DIY Insurance as I have had to engage with so many agencies and continually chase Zurich for progress. I would estimate that this has taken more than 35 hours of my time, with calls often having to be made during work time and emails sent in the evenings.
As a result of the early collection of the courtesy car and the protracted issuing of the claim cheque I was left without a car for 4 weeks. A situation only eased as some of this was through the holiday period and the fact that I was able to use my girlfriend’s car (she broke her wrist in the accident and was unable to drive for a period of time).
I’d be interested in any comments or feedback....

Thanks
Graham

raskazz

I think £150 is a very fair offer, and knowing what levels of compensation the Ombudsman typically award it is absolutely clear to me that they will not instruct the insurer to increase the offer should you refer your complaint to them.

Annisele

The Financial Ombudsman Service does publish a technical note on its approach to distress and inconvenience claims, which you might find useful. (I don't think I can post links, but it's at financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/distress-and-inconvenience.htm with a www. stuck on the front - or just google "Financial Ombudsman Service distress".)

There's a case on that note where FOS awarded "less than £300" to somebody who had been without a car for two weeks because of the insurer's error - I know that's not the same as your case, but it might give you a starting point.

I think that compensation would only be paid for the extra inconvenience caused by Zurich's error - not for the inevitable inconvenience caused by the fact that some idiot wrote your car off and injured you and your girlfriend. That's almost impossible to separate out, but, for example, FOS says that it might make an allowance for the consumer's time, at £50-£100 per day or not more than £10 per hour. Although I can well believe it's taken more than 35 hours of your time to get this sorted, I suspect that it would have taken some time even if Zurich's service had been perfect - so I doubt that FOS would award 35 x £10 for your time.

I don't deal with motor insurance complaints, but £150 sounds on the low side of reasonable to me. FOS *might* increase it, but I think that is by no means a certainty. On the other hand, if you do take it to FOS Zurich will have to pay FOS a £500 case fee on top of any compensation to you - so it might be worth asking Zurich if it will increase its offer to £300 or £350.

mybrokenankle

Hi
I have experience of Zurich, its dreadful customer service and am currently involved with the Financial Ombudsman service. In September 2005 we had to make a claim on our Zurich home & contents insurance and have been fighting for justice ever since. Read my blog elainesbrokenankle.blogspot.com for the full story. I have a personal injury case against Zurich and my husband and I also have further claims against them with the FOS including the time and money spent trying to get the claim sorted. Yes it is worth involving the FOS if you can as they have a 'name & shame' policy and Zurich deserves all the bad publicy!