Home/Motor Insurance with Online Claims Process

Chubba

Hi

Is there a list of companies that have the feature to be able to log and manage claims online? I'm not adverse to calling a claims hotline but it gets a bit frustrating when you're on hold for long periods.

I was recently involved in a car accident (third party admitted fault straight away) which happened on a Sunday morning. I rang my insurance company and after navigating through a multitude of automatic options, I get through to someone after being on hold for 40 minutes only to be told that I've somehow gone through to the wrong place. They diverted my call to somewhere else which after a couple of rings an automated message tells me that the Claims Department was closed Sunday!

The big irony of this was that when I purchased this insurance, I purposely sought out policies that had 24/7 claims lines. Now, I'm not sure if the current Coronavirus situation has something to do with them no longer offering 24/7 claims lines in the which case I can understand. Nevertheless, although they offer an online claims logging system but bizarrely only if it only involved a single (own) car accident!

Hence why, when I next come to renew, I'd like to know which companies have an initial online claims logging process just to make life easier should another unfortunate incident occur.

Thanks

Sandtree

First of all, what do you consider an "online claims logging"? There are companies which have an online form but in reality all it does is email it to the claims team who manually rekey it into the proper claims system. Would this style be enough for your needs?

jimbo6977

Elephant does.
But as above, a human has to intervene at some point and will email or ring you.

Chubba

Thanks Sandtree and jimbo6977.  I should've added that my expectation was that I would need to speak with someone at some point and absolutely don't mind this so even if just a basic online form is sufficient.  Although it must have the ability to log all types of claim and not just limited ones like with my own insurance company.  

It was really just so I don't have to be on hold on the phone for ages or worse - like in my recent experience - the lines not actually being open at the weekend so I've wasted that time being on hold.

jimbo6977 - funnily enough the third party's insurance company was Elephant.  They had messaged me to say they logged the claim online on that very Sunday, and Elephant rang me shortly after 8am Monday which is much more efficient than my own company as I hadn't even had the chance to get through to them at that point.

Sandtree

Chubba said:

Elephant rang me shortly after 8am Monday which is much more efficient than my own company as I hadn't even had the chance to get through to them at that point.

When I first started my career proper I dealt with third party claims where our policyholder was 100% to blame for the accident... our target for making contact with the third party was significantly tighter than the accident management team for contacting the policyholder.  The ability to "capture the claim" is a key strategy in cost mitigation to avoid you going down the credit hire route etc.