Car insurance - conflict of interest - company represents both drivers

lisyloo

This was a parked car, so should be no question around liability (and I don't believe there is).
There does seem to be a discrepancy with the valuation so that needs to be investigated as to whether it's fair.
Also whether repairs could be done in a more reasonable way.
Paint work is expensive to do, but in some cases the owner would prefer the car back without perfect paintwork, especially if the rest of the car is less than perfect anyway.

Clive_Woody

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Aretnap

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

Clive_Woody

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

The scenario I was referring to occurred on a regular B-road, regular width lanes, no parked cars, no loose animals, clear dry day. The old guy crossed completely into the opposite lane and hit my wife head on. Plenty of witnesses with details provided to the insurer. 

Aviva said 50:50. We said "nope", but no doubt they had their reasons....which they later reconsidered. I wouldn't say brazenly corrupt, more like inept, but I'd be curious how often similar decisions are made.

DullGreyGuy

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

The scenario I was referring to occurred on a regular B-road, regular width lanes, no parked cars, no loose animals, clear dry day. The old guy crossed completely into the opposite lane and hit my wife head on. Plenty of witnesses with details provided to the insurer. 

Aviva said 50:50. We said "nope", but no doubt they had their reasons....which they later reconsidered. I wouldn't say brazenly corrupt, more like inept, but I'd be curious how often similar decisions are made.

Anyone commenting now would only be guessing because we dont know exactly what was said, by whom and nor do we have what the "old guy" had stated had happened or if independent witness statements had been received then.

As a former claims technician as soon as you hear "b-road" or "country lane" you start imaging the classic narrow lane collision where both sides either say that the other party strayed onto their side of the road and/or that they had managed to stop in time but the TP didnt brake in time so hit their stationary vehicle. 

It would be common practice to try and manage expectations and point out that these types of incidents often end up 50/50 without independent witnesses. 

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

Depends if the insured says the person rolled back from the traffic lights.

The conflict is much more around claims settlements than next years premiums... trying to ensure that the injured party carries as much of the blame as possible to avoid having to pay the £30,000 of injury/LoE etc which will easily dwarf any future premium uplift achieved. 

anonmoose2000

dunstonh said:

 I have 9 examples of cars that are selling for around £8,000 and they say my car is worth around £4,000

What have they said when you supplied them that evidence?

I shall be presenting this to them later, taking advice from this message board and from a friend who works in insurance. 

Thanks for all the comments - very helpful. 

Clive_Woody

DullGreyGuy said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

The scenario I was referring to occurred on a regular B-road, regular width lanes, no parked cars, no loose animals, clear dry day. The old guy crossed completely into the opposite lane and hit my wife head on. Plenty of witnesses with details provided to the insurer. 

Aviva said 50:50. We said "nope", but no doubt they had their reasons....which they later reconsidered. I wouldn't say brazenly corrupt, more like inept, but I'd be curious how often similar decisions are made.

Anyone commenting now would only be guessing because we dont know exactly what was said, by whom and nor do we have what the "old guy" had stated had happened or if independent witness statements had been received then.

As a former claims technician as soon as you hear "b-road" or "country lane" you start imaging the classic narrow lane collision where both sides either say that the other party strayed onto their side of the road and/or that they had managed to stop in time but the TP didnt brake in time so hit their stationary vehicle. 

It would be common practice to try and manage expectations and point out that these types of incidents often end up 50/50 without independent witnesses. 

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

Aretnap said:

Clive_Woody said:

mr_stripey said:

it surely can't be that unusual to have two parties involved in a collision insured by the same company?

We had that with Aviva where both parties had the same insurer. My wife's car was hit hit head on by an elderly gentleman driving on the wrong side of the road. Initially Aviva proposed settling on a 50:50 basis. We politely declined and they reconsidered and my wife was found to not be at fault. The cynic in me says that Aviva would have liked both parties to be at fault, two excess payments and premiums increased accordingly.

Premiums increased? More likely a 50:50 settlement leaves them with no premiums at all, because they will now have two unhappy customers who will look to take their business elsewhere at renewal time.

As for the excess, a 50:50 settlement means that both customers pay half their excess. So if insurers were going to risk the wrath of the regulators by rigging claims between their own customers, they would at least have the sense to rig them so that the party with the bigger excess was always 100% to blame. That way the risk of multimillion pound fines would at least be offset by the possibility of picking up an extra £100 here and there.

By that logic, one unhappy customer and most likley one who is quite happy that their insurer shifted 50% responsibility to the other party and decreased their excess payout.

Well I suppose if you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights and your insurer says "that'll be 50/50" then you're going to be pretty happy. But not even the most brazenly corrupt insurer is going to try that.

Where there is a serious dispute about liability for the nasty insurer to exploit in the first place it's quite likely to be because both drivers think they're in the right - a roundabout or a narrow country lane etc where each thinks the other should have given way - so neither is likely to be particularly happy with a 50/50 outcome.

In any event the notion that is worth losing one customer to get a fractionally higher premium out of the other next year is pretty shaky. Especially if the one you keep is the one who would have had a fault claim against him had you handled the claim honestly in the first place. 

Depends if the insured says the person rolled back from the traffic lights.

The conflict is much more around claims settlements than next years premiums... trying to ensure that the injured party carries as much of the blame as possible to avoid having to pay the £30,000 of injury/LoE etc which will easily dwarf any future premium uplift achieved. 

As I said, there were multiple independent witnesses whose names were provided to Aviva, along with photos taken immediately after the impact showing the position of the impact and the surrounding area. The car that hit my wife's car was entirely in her lane, hitting her head on. A 30 second check on Google maps would have confirmed that this was not a narrow country lane.

"Managing expectations" is one thing, acting in an inept manner and failing to carry out a reasonable investigation another. I do wonder how more thorough Aviva would have been if the third party had had a different insurer, would they have been so quick to propose a 50:50 decision.

DullGreyGuy

Clive_Woody said:
"Managing expectations" is one thing, acting in an inept manner and failing to carry out a reasonable investigation another. I do wonder how more thorough Aviva would have been if the third party had had a different insurer, would they have been so quick to propose a 50:50 decision.

Again, would need to know the circumstances of the call (did they phone you or you phone them). Was the person you were talking to from the technical team or from the call centre side. What their system is like. 

In my claims days our systems were terrible. The home page of a claim gave you the basic details (insured name address, type of claim (fire, theft, AD), claim location, accident type code, 2 line description, claim handler owners, garage doing PH repairs if a network garage and a couple of details of the policy (TPFT/ Comp, LE cover or not, excess etc), and status (open, closed, reopened).

So if you called me and asked what was happening on the claim then I cannot see from that screen that the third party is also our insured. I either have to go into the TP screen and see who the insurer is, which I generally wouldnt do as standard, or I have to go to the Notes screen and scroll to the very bottom to see that the 1st or 2nd message highlights that this is a blue on blue claim. 

Witnesses likewise appeared on the TP screen so not immediately obv if there are any or not until you either go looking or if the FNOL agent put a note on saying about it. Our system couldnt attach photos or inbound letters etc so to see there are picture of the scene you had to go to the filing cabinet and hope the file is where it should be. Photos were then limited by the quality of the printers.

Companies do things in different ways but customers mainly called the call centre and whilst we would take calls from them in the technical team they were encouraged to try and resolve calls within their skills. That could mean agents would sometimes go into the notes screen, see there is a mention of 50/50 and they think summerising what a note says is within their skill set so do (Had to take over several irate calls from agents as a consequence). 

With inbound calls in particular it was a real faff to try to review the file whilst the customer is talking to you and get the relevant details. Sometimes you ended up answering questions without really understanding the situation... customer asks if you've heard from the TPI yet, you scan the notes page and see no TPI Call or TPI Letter prefixes and so can answer "no" and say you'll get the filehandler to chase again. Most customers say thanks and hangup 

Clive_Woody

DullGreyGuy said:

Clive_Woody said:
"Managing expectations" is one thing, acting in an inept manner and failing to carry out a reasonable investigation another. I do wonder how more thorough Aviva would have been if the third party had had a different insurer, would they have been so quick to propose a 50:50 decision.

Again, would need to know the circumstances of the call (did they phone you or you phone them). Was the person you were talking to from the technical team or from the call centre side. What their system is like. 

In my claims days our systems were terrible. The home page of a claim gave you the basic details (insured name address, type of claim (fire, theft, AD), claim location, accident type code, 2 line description, claim handler owners, garage doing PH repairs if a network garage and a couple of details of the policy (TPFT/ Comp, LE cover or not, excess etc), and status (open, closed, reopened).

So if you called me and asked what was happening on the claim then I cannot see from that screen that the third party is also our insured. I either have to go into the TP screen and see who the insurer is, which I generally wouldnt do as standard, or I have to go to the Notes screen and scroll to the very bottom to see that the 1st or 2nd message highlights that this is a blue on blue claim. 

Witnesses likewise appeared on the TP screen so not immediately obv if there are any or not until you either go looking or if the FNOL agent put a note on saying about it. Our system couldnt attach photos or inbound letters etc so to see there are picture of the scene you had to go to the filing cabinet and hope the file is where it should be. Photos were then limited by the quality of the printers.

Companies do things in different ways but customers mainly called the call centre and whilst we would take calls from them in the technical team they were encouraged to try and resolve calls within their skills. That could mean agents would sometimes go into the notes screen, see there is a mention of 50/50 and they think summerising what a note says is within their skill set so do (Had to take over several irate calls from agents as a consequence). 

With inbound calls in particular it was a real faff to try to review the file whilst the customer is talking to you and get the relevant details. Sometimes you ended up answering questions without really understanding the situation... customer asks if you've heard from the TPI yet, you scan the notes page and see no TPI Call or TPI Letter prefixes and so can answer "no" and say you'll get the filehandler to chase again. Most customers say thanks and hangup 

This was multiple calls over several weeks with various photos and statements provided before the letter arrived stating 50:50. This was not a frontline call handler, but supposedly a claims manager who had had chance to review all information provided and speak with the independent witnesses before making a decision.

DullGreyGuy

Clive_Woody said:
This was multiple calls over several weeks with various photos and statements provided before the letter arrived stating 50:50. This was not a frontline call handler, but supposedly a claims manager who had had chance to review all information provided and speak with the independent witnesses before making a decision.

Got to love job title inflation, unless it was like our letters which were all signed by the system as coming from the Claims Director (until he left, a year later had an accident with one of our policyholders and received a letter from us still being signed by him... we then went to a squiggle and a job title rather than an identifiable person). Our lot call them Claims Underwriters which is an odd title but intended to avoid Claims being second class employees -v- Underwriting.

Having time probably should be in "", even in the technical teams its a fairly high pressure/volume job. Before starting to deal with injury claims used to have between 1,000 and 1,500 open claims with disputed liability per experienced technician. Telephone calls are taken by whoever is free but you have to deal with all the inbound letters/email and diaries so the amount of time you get for actioning each item isnt significant esp if a non-letter requires you to find the paper file.