Can ins company pay another customer compo?

harveybobbles

Grandparents were involved in serious accident a few weeks ago and ended up batered and bruised. Wasnt their fault, some guy ran into the back of them at speed.

Claim has been slow. Car has been written off. Both 'rents are now receiveing physio and other stuff. But they are insured with the same company as the person who ran into the back of them.

How will that work with a payout?

vaio

theory is different teams deal with the two sides so outcome should be no different than if there were two different insurers involved.

Think "Chinese walls" is the term

If they are seriously injured then they should get their own independent legal advice

fannyadams

SO glad they are not really really badly hurt.
usually the person who ran into the back of them is at fault.
doesn't matter if they are insured with the same company (it might mean it will get resolved quicker)
claim for vehicle will progress quite quickly.
from personal experience, The personal injury claim WILL be slow as they have to get as well as they can be (or back to full health) BEFORE any pay out is considered. you can get an interim payout if hardship is experienced (i.e. loss of earnings due to being unable to work through injury, but they might expect you to claim on a personal injury, hospital, or other insurance policy i.e. some mortgage co's have a policy that will pay out if the person can't pay the mortgage because they're not working but you'd have to check this)

InsideInsurance

The insurer should have chinese walls in place to ensure that the claim is handled in the same way as if you had been insured by two separate insurers. In my claims days we'd ensure the two claims handlers were in different offices to avoid watercooler chat etc and we did literally write and telephone each other in the same way you would any other insurer's claims handler. Similarly Audit checked that one handler wasnt looking at the other handler's file - back then paperwork wasnt digitised so you couldnt read witness statements or see report forms even if you did look at it just the notes that the filehander had put on the electronic file about the content.

The only differences we had were (a) you sent mail by internal post rather than Royal Mail - though even that was rarely done and (b) we wouldnt fund litigation other than if there was significant PI claims, if there was an unsolvable dispute between the two sides a senior partner solicitor/ barrister from the companies preferred legal firm would be appointed as an adjudicator to pass judgement instead.

londonTiger

It's wishful thinking that the claim is going to be handled by independant teams. No matter what happens the top managers are going to limit the compensation as much as possible. Claimant should see independant advice.

We see it everywhere, Russia Today (RT) is purpotedly independant from Moscow and has full editorial control yet they never criticise Russia.

MPs receive campaign financing from lobby groups and when they get elected they petition for changes in the rules that seem to benefit these lobby companies.

No matter how many instruments are in place to seeminly make the claims managers independant. They are effectively deciding how much of a loss their company makes and they will limit the loss as much as possible.

They may be independant when it comes to assigning fault. But they will do their best to limit the payout as much as possible. Including not mentioning treatments and services that the claimant is entitled to claim for, scrap value of written off car etc..

InsideInsurance

londonTiger wrote: »

It's wishful thinking that the claim is going to be handled by independant teams. No matter what happens the top managers are going to limit the compensation as much as possible.

And what evidence do you have to support this rather than just scaremongering? Why also do you believe the FCA would be happy with this?

From my point of view, I know in all my years of claims handling I didnt let the TPI have an easy time just because they were based in another of our offices. If anything you were harder on them as you wanted to be "employee of the month" or such thing and they were your competition in that.

Similarly, my bonus was dependent on all my cases not just when the TPI is not part of our group so on a personal level I am financially incentivised to get the best possible outcome for my policyholder. Given I worked for one of the largest personal lines motor insurers "blue on blue" cases were a notable proportion of my case load.

londonTiger

evidence = human logic.

You will always be loyal to people who are paying your paycheque.

Read how to win friends and influence people, there is a chapter on recripocation. If you don anyone a favour they will always return a favour.

On another marketing book I read about how charities would enclose a pen in the mail and gift of a pen would increase donations because the recipient felt compelled to return the favour. Also the mail where they were sending small packets of rice in their mail in order to get donations to pay for mail packets. It too increased donations massively but there was a verbal backlash from donars about the logic of sending small packets of rice to donars when they were claiming people were starving in africa.

When humans are easily influenced with such a small minute level, I think it's extremely unlikely that a claims handler is going to process the claim in the same manner as if they were claiming from a 3rd party insurer.

OnanTheBarbarian

In a "blue on blue" incident like this, expect to see generous pre-medical offers being touted.

londonTiger

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Why also do you believe the FCA would be happy with this?

How we are funded

We are funded entirely by the financial services firms we regulate.


source: http://www.fca.org.uk/about/how-we-are-funded

In the USA the organisation for drug free america (which targets marijuana primarily) receives massive donations from alcohol and tobacco firm.

InsideInsurance

londonTiger wrote: »

evidence = human logic.

So in other words, scaremongering

When you work in a regulated industry unfortunately you simply cannot do whatever you want whenever you want. Or probably I should say thankfully as it keeps me in a well paid job.

Many of the principles of Treating Customer Fairly, ICOB rule go against what would be "business sense" as you say but you have to play by the rules.

InsideInsurance

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

In a "blue on blue" incident like this, expect to see generous pre-medical offers being touted.

You'll see the same offered on all cases these days. Ambulance chasers will inevitably get to them at some point so may as well try and at least exclude the solicitors margins and kickbacks from the equation.