A good insurance story...

[millster]

Some may remember that I was involved in an accident in June. Given the circumstances, my insurance wound up paying for both vehicles (about $9000 US). The good part of this story is that I got the documents for my 2005 policy renewal today and my insurance only went up $20/month. So I dodged the bullet this time. The ticket will forever be removed from my record in January and I no longer work for the same company so I'm not near that disaster of an intersection anymore. Ahh, life is good!

[AKLGT]

good to hear!

[millster]

Why would I "shoot" you for saying that? On some policies, you may be correct.In this case, however, this is the only penalty. My policy renews at a firm rate for 6 months and the only thing that would change it is a different vehicle. That's why I am just now seeing the penalty from an accident that occured in June.I made sure to have that clarified when I started the policy on the Sebring. The only thing they weren't able to tell me over the phone at the time was exactly what the increase would be.

[millster]

Yeah. Some companies are worse than others. I will say one thing for certain. I'm with Safeco and they have been nothing but fair to me. They handled the entirety of the claim with no questions or problems. The size of the penalty may have a lot to do with the fact that the accident was declared no fault by the police even though the insurance company laid the blame on me. The ticket was deferred so it is not a part of my record at all. My new policy does state that it includes a review of my driving record so...

[millster]

That may be. Mine was purely cosmetic damage (as far as I could tell) so they didn't fight it at all.

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by silverawd26 »...And I am starting to really hate insurance companies..... I used to work for an insurance company. 4 years directly handling claims and 5 years training the adjusters to handle claims. I learned many things over those years that gave me great insight into two things people hate about insurance companies.1. Insurance companies don't want to pay. This could not be further from the truth (at least for me when I was an adjuster, and the way I trained adjusters). I handled roughly 200 open claims at any given time. I loved paying claims because it meant less work for me. One less file to worry about. I would look for ways to pay them...but my primary responsibility was to the insured policy holder so I had to conduct a thorough investigation before I could pay out a dime to anyone hit by my insured. Keep in mind, most people lied about the facts of how the accident happened to make themselves seem less at fault (lies delayed payment). Also related to this, quite a few people and repair shops lied or exaggerated the amount of vehicle damage so that would delay payment too.2. Insurance rates are too high. First and foremost, an insurance company is like any other company: it needs to make money to survive. Something to keep in mind, insurance competition is fierce, and my company charged the absolute lowest amount it could and still make money. Remember, most people choose their insurance company based on price, so the lower the premium, the more business for the company. The biggest problem with the cost being so high is the amount of false or exaggerated claims that occur. I heard a statistic once that 1 in 3 injury claims is a false claim. With almost 9 years experience, I hate to say I think it's much worse than that (at least in So. Cal.). I would estimate it to be more like 7/10 or 8/10 injury claims were outright false or greatly exaggerated. As I got more experience, certain patterns started to jump out at me, certain nationalities of people ALWAYS claimed an injury regardless of how minor an impact and people that lived in low income neighborhoods ALWAYS claimed an injury regardless of how minor an impact …but there was nothing I could do about it. There was a fraud unit I could refer a file to but unless it was high fraud or blatant fraud, they wouldn’t pursue a fraud case and I’d have to just pay the claim. I heard another statistic once: 1/4 of Americans think it’s OK to defraud an insurance company. So the next time you get that high insurance bll, remember you are paying for someone else's fake injury claim.

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by silverawd26 »What confuses me, is that insurance companies are willing to pay an extra $25 dollars a day for rentals and extending the OK for them for say 5-6 more days while mechanical items that possibly were damaged by an accident, the costs are pretty much the same. So in the long run, if the insurance company OK's the repair for the mechanics of the vehicle, they are out double the cost.Your statement confuses me Specifically, what does "the costs are pretty much the same" mean? It seems out of place in that sentence.

[silver_vibe]

You have the benefit of hindsight and adjusters are only human. I made many mistakes over the years while handling claims.I can only guess what happened in that particular situation, but I can say I would have paid it if there was a "probable" relationship to the accident.If I had to guess, the auto appraiser thought the vehicle owner was trying to exaggerate the extent of damage to have other pre-existing damage paid by the insurance company. I remember one claim I handled where the vehicle owner claimed their sunroof was leaking but the impact was so minor it could not have possible resulting in frame damage. The sunroof leak was obviously pre-existing.

[MadBill]

Quote, originally posted by silver_vibe »...ALWAYS claimed an injury regardless of how minor an impact …..Reminds me of a video clip I saw. A near-empty city bus had a minor accident, and a 40-person riot developed around the doors among people trying to fight their way in so they could get a piece of the settlement...

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by silverawd26 »What strikes to be weird, the Insurance Companies claim their Adjusters are top in their field, but rely on the the shop who are doing repairs to do the estimates.I don't know about the trend nationally, but here in So. Cal. insurance companies are drastically cutting back on field appraisers in lieu of sending the vehicle to be repaired at a "preferred" shop. The result is insurance companies relying more and more on the body shop's estimates. I guess they figure it's cheaper to pay out more on 30 exaggerated claims per shop per year (or whatever the figure is), as opposed to paying for a fleet of field appraisers $50,000 per year plus benefits. Only time will tell if the fraud ends up out weighing the salaries.

[AKLGT]

Quote, originally posted by silver_vibe »I don't know about the trend nationally, but here in So. Cal. insurance companies are drastically cutting back on field appraisers in lieu of sending the vehicle to be repaired at a "preferred" shop. The result is insurance companies relying more and more on the body shop's estimates. I guess they figure it's cheaper to pay out more on 30 exaggerated claims per shop per year (or whatever the figure is), as opposed to paying for a fleet of field appraisers $50,000 per year plus benefits. Only time will tell if the fraud ends up out weighing the salaries.ahh.. the business mathematics and statistics at it's best!just like my work, last week we lost 3 larger clients, approx $1000/mo in revenue. so we take a look and see maybe we should lower rates for some of our largest clients. but then you have to figure out, ok, well, would we rather make $1000 on one client for 12 months than only $200/mo for 24 months? or even 36 months? the reality is that we're going to lose 30% of all clients within a 3 yr period, so we have to increase our sales by 50% each year in order to still make our 20% annual increase goal. it's crazy!