Knocked off my bike

InsideInsurance

fivetide wrote: »

You will note I specifically said "if available" as I recognise police do not turn up to every incident and reports will vary on seriousness so there was no need to explain that to me. We have also established that reports cost more than the Police ones earlier in the thread although surprisingly, the cost now seems to be equal, the quality better and the speed improved. Interesting.


All I am saying, is that if court can accept this apparently inaccurate reporting, it is a shame the insurance industry can't too even if there is less profit in there for them.

No we never established that a police interview is more expensive than a police report. I disputed Captain's cost estimate from the outset as all the insurers I did claims with had national coverage of internal claims field staff that would do this sort of thing and so you are simply talking salary + minor travel costs (company car mileage and parking).

If there was no internal staff able to do the report then the £150 is probably not far off what an external company would charge but certainly there wouldnt be an extra £80 of expenses added on top. If you were wanting an expert in cognative questioning or other interview expert then the fee would be higher but I cannot see why you'd want such an expert for asking the attending police officer a list of questions and noting the replies.

The courts arent a commercial enterprise with the potential of substantial losses riding on the case. Captain complains at the insurer paying out what they believe is £230 for a report how do you think they'd feel about the insurer paying out thousands or hundreds of thousands because of a poor quality police report in insurers blindly go by then without challenge or investigation?

jaydeeuk1

I actually find these discussions about insurance inner workings quite enlightening.

Hypothetical question - and apologies for sort of hijacking - if you were to have a collision where you believe the other drive to be at fault yet it could be disputed, would you be 'better off', for want of a better phrase, if the 3rd party was also with the same insurer as yourselves rather than a different company? Would this make the insurer less likely to try and apportion blame fairly?

If there is a difference to how insurers treat their members, would you therefore be better off statistically to go for a 'popular' insurer with hundreds of thousands of customers on the road, or a more expensive smaller one they aren't part of some parent Co. umbrella?

Or is the answer just 'No'?

InsideInsurance

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

if you were to have a collision where you believe the other drive to be at fault yet it could be disputed, would you be 'better off', for want of a better phrase, if the 3rd party was also with the same insurer as yourselves rather than a different company? Would this make the insurer less likely to try and apportion blame fairly?

The answer you will get will depend very much on the people you ask. Many who are anti-insurance companies will say they will want a split liability situation because then both customers premiums go up. When you point out that the retention rate for those forced to take an unfavourable claims decision is very low they then seem to think insurers become altruistic and are doing it for "the good of the market" - ie helping their competitors.

If this were true then (a) the FCA would have a field day handing out fines and (b) it would make massively more sense to decide liability on the predicted outlays rather than an automatic 50/50 - the guy with the major injuries would clearly be the one you want to be at fault so you dont have to pay out a PI claim.

"Blue on blue" cases, in my experience, are dealt no differently than any other claim other than (a) they ensured that the two claims handlers were based in different offices and didnt read the files of the other party, (b) internal memos are sent rather than external letters though half the time this isnt done as you forget its blue on blue and just did the normal key strokes to generate the letter you wanted and (c) in non-injury cases it wouldnt be taken to court but an arbitrator if the decision on liability or quantum couldnt be made and (d) we didnt actually send cheques to each other to finally settle the case.

Of cause if you had credit hire, injury lawyer or an accident management company "helping you" then C goes out the window as they would be issuing the proceedings.

Other than that it is no difference, certainly in my claims days you only saw who the TPI was if you went into the screen that showed it which you had no reason to do so unless you were wanting to phone them - obviously the system generated letters automatically pick up the insurers details and insert them after the letter is generated. So most the time you wouldnt even be aware its blue on blue when taking actions on the file.

One of the companies I worked for used to be big in the white labeling market and at one point had over 100 brands. You obviously knew the big ones but sometimes even when reading the TPI name you would even realise it was your own company, especially those that used PO Boxes etc so you didnt even have a proper address to look at.

Captaincodpiece

InsideInsurance wrote: »

No we never established that a police interview is more expensive than a police report. I disputed Captain's cost estimate from the outset as all the insurers I did claims with had national coverage of internal claims field staff that would do this sort of thing and so you are simply talking salary + minor travel costs (company car mileage and parking).

If there was no internal staff able to do the report then the £150 is probably not far off what an external company would charge but certainly there wouldnt be an extra £80 of expenses added on top. If you were wanting an expert in cognative questioning or other interview expert then the fee would be higher but I cannot see why you'd want such an expert for asking the attending police officer a list of questions and noting the replies.

The courts arent a commercial enterprise with the potential of substantial losses riding on the case. Captain complains at the insurer paying out what they believe is £230 for a report how do you think they'd feel about the insurer paying out thousands or hundreds of thousands because of a poor quality police report in insurers blindly go by then without challenge or investigation?

There would be loads if they weren't paid to play on here all day.

InsideInsurance

Captaincodpiece wrote: »

There would be loads if they weren't paid to play on here all day.

I'm not staff :beer: