Car Insurance Claim

adnin1

Hi all, was wondering if i could get advice or accounts of experiences. My car was stolen on sunday night. After informing the police and insurance company, the latter (Screentrade.co.uk) have said that they need to interview me (booked for tomorrow 10am for 15 mins) before they can process any further. Can someone tell me what this entails. I have had horrer stories from people about insurance co's reluctance to pay out and after the interrogative tone of the insurance person i spoke to, am not looking forward at all. With so much shopping/chores to do and a 4 month old to take along in this weather, the car did feel like a neccessity. Feel gutted.

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UPDATE: Spooky - after posting this the police phoned to say they had found the car, but it has been completely stripped. How will this affect my insurance claim?

Astaroth

If the car hasnt been recovered then a theft will always be looked into in more depth.... it is easier to tell if everything is above board when you can see the damage the thieves caused etc.

The "interview" will simply be asking you about the events around the last time you used the car and when you discovered it had been stolen (assuming you didnt witness the theft itself). As long as you are 100% honest you have nothing to worry about. Most insurers use cognitive questioning techniques to assess your answers which is basically asking the same question in a number of different ways and probing into areas for more and more detail. If you are telling the truth then it should all flow naturally where as if you are lying the story starts to fall apart. Some insurers do also use electronic voice stress recognition software but these are still fairly rare.

The best example of cognitive questioning I ever witnessed was one of our solicitors questioning another party about an accident (the TP and their partner - questioning done separately) which had occurred 2 years ago or so. After whole raft of questions which both had answered "well" but not perfectly identical he then asked what colour jumper the driver had on.... given it was 2 years ago the correct answer was expected to be "dont know/ what has that got to do with anything/ cant remember" or a slim chance that they gave the correct answer. The driver, the first one to undergo the questioning took a long time thinking about it then gave an answer (say blue for arguments sake). When questioning his parter he asked her to confirm the colour that the driver had on saying that her partner had already answered.... after much stuttering and 1/2 attempted answers she finally said she didnt know and it all came out in the wash that the whole story was fabricated

adnin1

The car has been recovered an hour ago...does this mean no further investigations will be carried out.

Astaroth

Seeing as it probably has been "handed over" to the stolen not recovered specialists they will probably still conduct the interview but the importance of it is probably reduced.... saying that all insurers have their own ways of doing things and your insurers may handle things differently to the ones that I have worked for.