Aviva, problems following accident

andygb

Just recently, my OH had an accident with another car, and we have been found liable by the insurance company - Aviva (who incidently insure both parties in the accident). I have submitted photos of our vehicle to the police, and have suggested that we may not be at fault for the crash. I have tried to contact Aviva, but keep getting tangled up with multiple people in their call cnetre in India, where the claim handlers are based. They cannot understand me, and the last time I was on there for nearly half an hour, and kept having to tell the same story to three different people.
I now wish that I had stayed with Direct Line, because at least I was speaking to people who understood me (and more importantly I could understand them), which is of vital importance when you are dealing with an insurance claim. Despite my requests, Aviva have not contacted me back for over a week. The police have not finished their investigations, and my car is going in to be repaired and I have to pay a £350 excess.
What is my best course of action, in order to contact soemone who will at least understand what I am saying?

InsideInsurance

1) The police have NO training on liability and no exposure to the civil law that governs liability. 95% of the times police told one of my former cases their opinion on liability they were wrong.

2) Unless Aviva have changed their operating model in recent years then the customer claims aspect is handled by India but the third party claim aspect is dealt with by claims handlers in the UK. The challenge is tracking down which of the many units it is dealing with the case.

You could try calling the headoffice switch board and ask to speak to the motor liabilities team or such - they will most likely put you through to another team who are the ones whos sole job is trying to work out who is dealing with what in the organisation (thats how fragmented they are). It may take a few attempts.

Alternatively look at the letters/ emails you have received, especially about liability, one may have a different phone number for the UK team.

Out of curiosity, what is your version of events for the accident? Do you know the TP's version too?

2010

andygb wrote: »

What is my best course of action, in order to contact soemone who will at least understand what I am saying?

Claim online:

https://www.aviva.co.uk/car-claims-application/form/car-claims

[Deleted User]

andygb wrote: »

Just recently, my OH had an accident with another car, and we have been found liable by the insurance company - Aviva (who incidently insure both parties in the accident). I have submitted photos of our vehicle to the police, and have suggested that we may not be at fault for the crash. I have tried to contact Aviva, but keep getting tangled up with multiple people in their call cnetre in India, where the claim handlers are based. They cannot understand me, and the last time I was on there for nearly half an hour, and kept having to tell the same story to three different people.
I now wish that I had stayed with Direct Line, because at least I was speaking to people who understood me (and more importantly I could understand them), which is of vital importance when you are dealing with an insurance claim. Despite my requests, Aviva have not contacted me back for over a week. The police have not finished their investigations, and my car is going in to be repaired and I have to pay a £350 excess.
What is my best course of action, in order to contact soemone who will at least understand what I am saying?

Hi andygb,

I'm sorry to see your post about your experience. I'd like to help and get this looked into for you. If you send me some more details, I can see what's happening with your claim.

Please email me at [EMAIL="social@aviva.co.uk"]social@aviva.co.uk[/EMAIL] with the following:

- Full name of policy holder
- Full postal address
- Date of birth
- Policy / Claim number

As soon as I receive these details I will be happy to help.

Kind regards,

Rachel

joannaspanner

Nightmare, I used to work for an accident repair centre and I used to dread ringing Aviva claims as I couldn't understand them and didn't seem to be understood either.

rs65

The police will have no interest.

You have my sympathy dealing with a call centre like that.

Why not post here about the circumstances and get views on who was at fault. Might not get the answer you want but could save you grief with the call centre.

2010

Sooner or later these companies might learn that having overseas call centres to save a bit of money will lose them, in the long run

---

CUSTOMERS.
Thereby saving them no money at all.

InsideInsurance

Though with claims rates being around 15% the majority of customers are not actually exposed to the overseas claims handlers.

Of those that customers do claim you would imagine that the majority have a straight forward case which potentially are dealt with in a single phone call.

The other reality is simply claims always cost insurers customers even if they are a UK based call centre as never will all customers be happy with total loss settlements, claims declined, uninsured TPs, insurer's decisions on liability etc.

Cost benefits are therefore difficult to do to judge is the savings are worth the costs.

That said, being able to say you have UK only call centres does have a significant marketing value - and you can still offshore the back office functions that are not customer facing and get the benefits with less of the costs

2010

At the end of the day you want to understand and be understood.

What happens is these people overseas read from a script and anything out of the ordinary they ring up the UK to find out what they should do.

A bit ironic.

InsideInsurance

2010 wrote: »

At the end of the day you want to understand and be understood.

And at the end of the day an insurer wants to make profit.

Customer service has a price attached to it and like any other part of the organisation a balance between cost and benefits has to be struck and insurers do accept not 100% of customers will be satisfied (or potentially understand)

Of cause the other problem is customer attitude/ drivers. If I launched a new insurer tomorrow that promised 100% satisfaction to every customer but everyone will pay an extra £75 a year I can tell you now that my conversion rate will be terrible, particularly on the aggregators (confused.com etc) where the majority of switchers now buy through.

Insurance is a commoditised distress purchase and price is king for 99% of people

2010

InsideInsurance wrote: »

And at the end of the day an insurer wants to make profit.

After a quick look through yahoo finance I can`t find one that hasn`t made a profit.
They all seem to be making enormous profits, maybe you could point to one.
I believe direct line is to be floated from RBS, surely not to make a loss?
It`s probably the only profitable bit of RBS.

Insurance companies could avoid a lot cost by retaining customers.
Do you watch tv?, every other ad is for insurance.
I expect they gets their ads free!