UK Assistance Anyone had dealings with them

SEYMORE_BUTS

UK Assistance are Loss assessors but they only want to get the job done as cheaply as possible.
The bloke I dealt with was useless, you can never get hold of him there is no trace of them on the internet. Even the insurance company appears to have no way of getting them to reply.
They wanted to use their contractors who when he eventually appeared wanted to have all the repairs done in a day and requested that the damaged wall paper was stripped before he would start!

Has anyone else had any problems with them or know who they are?

FlameCloud

I've never heard of them, but I dont think they are loss assessors. They would want the job doing as expensivly as possible, given that they are employed by you (the policy holder) and get a % of the claim.

SEYMORE_BUTS

No they are sent by the insurance company... I take it they must be loss adjusters then. Either way the service they provide is not what I expected when I have paid my premiums year after year without ever making a claim

BenL

I think UK Assistance is a wholy owned company of the Direct Line/RBS group.

They dealt with my car after a write off with Privilege (another group company).

SEYMORE_BUTS

Now it all makes sense... Have your internal loss adjusters knock the cost of repairs to next to half the actual cost. Pretend when the customer complains that they are independent when in fact they have vested interest and probably some sort of bonus in paying out as little as possible as soon as possible. Then don’t answer calls or emails knowing that eventually the sucker ( valued customer ) will get bored or give up trying and except the offer and pay the difference themselves to get the work done to a satisfactory standard. :mad:

Could it be the reason why direct Line/RBS advertise so much is because they need to replace the churn of disgruntled customers ?

thehack

Hi I am another very unhappy customer of Tesco Home Insurance - UK Assistance handle all Tesco claims and they are very poor. Their rep has failed to return a telephone call regarding a complaint more than one week later. I find it very interesting to read on posts that they are paid bonuses for not paying out on claims. Where is that in the small print? Tesco washes its hands of any complaint and is not interested. Other readers beware!!! Anyone out there had success with insurance ombudsman? How long does it take to get a decision?

TenaciousD

There is no cost to go to the Ombudsman, so no harm in you putting in a complaint. However, you would have had to complain and receive a final response from the insurance company before doing this assuming you are still unsatisfied. It can take up to 6 months. But you should do it anyways if you are unhappy as its no cost to you.

tony2347

I have UK assistance dealing with my claim for flood damage and rushing is not part of their deal. However neither is it mine and like any angler with a sizeable fish on the hook reel in nice and slowly. I recomend you appoint a loss assessor, i have and it puts their loss adjuster well on the backfoot and go for cash settlement. I have track and trace on my policy, which means they the insurers route out the problems, their people have found the leak, temperaraly repaired the leak, put driers in, removed laminate flooring and are now having to remove the marley type tiles that were underneath in case there is asbestos in them. All done by their people so there is no come back to me. But any settlements for replacement kitchen, flooring and re-decorating will be done by me and my people.

AshF

This is the worst company I have ever dealt with! They took my car for repairs 3 weeks ago and despite claiming it would be returned 3 days ago have still failed to return it. As i was hit by a driver who didnt stop I am fully liable for the excess which is bad enough but my car hire only covered me 14 days so now I am out of pocket for a full weeks hire.

When I called to complain the guy was instantly cheeky, then when I asked to speak to him line manager he passed me over to a lady who said she would take responsibility for the additional car hire from the period where I was told my car would have been returned and when they actually decide to get their fingers out and actually work on it.....

Guess what? She never called the car hire place so more lies!

She also told me my repair took 40 hours of labour, well excuse me but 3 weeks equates to 120 of one persons hours so very clearly its been merrily sitting in their carpark costing me money.

They dont return calls, when you call you get placed on hold and its an absolute joke!

I will be moving from Direct Line at the point of upgrade despite being with them 10 years, what a terrible experience!

lisyloo

Do yourselves a favour and go with decent companies like Chubb or Hiscox.
Might be 20% more, but only you can decide whether that's worth the hassle.

paintspiller

I have just dealt with Uk Assistance. They fit wrong parts then say the new parts are the same as the old ones. I’ve spoken to 6 different people in the 2 week my car was in for repair and everyone told me a different story (parts on order, can’t get parts, no Uk stockist, wrong parts been sent etc.) the list is endless, and when I referred to the last phone call from them, nobody no's what was said and the people who made the calls do not work there (strange). They used to be Direct lines repair centre many years ago and the service is just as bad if not worse since they've been taken over. UK Assistance is not worth dealing with.