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I really should start posting these as they happen, this was a claim I knew was going to turn to faeces from day one. This one is ongoing however – almost a month to the day. Some parts may be slightly out of order
BACKGROUND:
The company I work for supplies the general insurance products for (bank). So everything we send out has (bank) letterhead, we tell people we work for (bank) insurance, but I’m actually employed by, paid by, and answerable to (Insurance company).
The Insured in this claim works for (bank) in a reasonably high position in the mortgage managers area – he’s high enough up the food chain to have company car, phone and direct reports.
IT BEGINS:
Insured calls up and lets us know that, he finished up at work drinks on Friday night, drove home and then walked to his mates place where he had another dozen beers or so. Stumbled home about 2:30 in the morning and goes to bed. In the morning he discovers that his car is not where he tells us he left it.
He tells us the car was recently listed for sale on (auction site) (Red Flag 1) , and has a five star alarm (Red Flag 2) . (For those who don’t know, a 5 star alarm includes 3 points of immobilisation, at least 1 backup alarm siren, motion sensors for tilt and movement, glass break sensors, rolling codes etc). He tells us he will call the police when he finishes speaking to us. With all of this information to hand, we decide to appoint and investigator. In the meantime, he needs to complete a 3 page questionnaire about his car so that we can get it valued.
He gets the form to us, we send it to (Valuer 1). Important to note on the form he says he turned down offers of $13k-$14k. At the same time, we get an update from the investigator, who notes that he was only issued with 1 key/remote when he brought the car (Red Flag 3) . We speak to the current supplier who confirms that this model of alarm ALWAYS comes with two remotes. We then get the valuation back - $13k.
CUE THE SUCKTH
We advise the Insured of this valuation – he replies that he will not accept anything less than $15k and ‘if I cannot authorise this, I need to bring it up with my boss’ (Red Flag 4) I note that the valuer did miss the details about the stereo that he installed, and ask them to review. They come back and increase the offer by $500.00 (4 year old stereo, in a car where putting an aftermarket stereo can reduce the value). I also decide to appoint (Valuer 2). This is Friday afternoon.
Between 4:00pm Friday, and 8:30am Monday, the Insured sends us 3 emails (Red Flag 5) To Parapharse -
Email the first (Friday): I gave the investigator the information Wednesday, when will this be approved
Email the second (Saturday): 2 weeks and no answer on this claim, I feel a fair turnaround will be Monday, let me know if this will not happen so I can raise it further. I have spoken to the second valuer and put him on hold (Red Flag 6)
Email the Third (Saturday): This is what I see happening from here – confirm claim approved – please put pressure on investigator. Please hold on the second valuer as we can work from the first valuation (More below on this). And I think this needs to be how its paid. Please sort this by Thursday as I am going away, if you don’t agree with my figures let me know who I can speak to for a second opinion, and I will be investigating my options externally as well ((Red Flag 7) . I have found this whole process exhausting and not customer centric. I really want to leave my 6 policies with (insurance) and sign up my 4 new houses, but am now nervous about the customer service I received (Red Flag 8) .
Email the third was also copied to (Bank Bigwig).
He also sent an email to (bank bigwig) asking who he can speak to get his way – which (bank bigwig) then sent to our relationship manager who then FYI’d me….
THE PLOT, LIKE MY GRAVY, THICKENS
Monday morning and I see the wave of crap from the weekend with his emails. I also then get a call from (Valuer 2). He then tells me that he thinks the Insured is inflating his claim, telling us its worth more than it is. He says that he has owned 4 of these particular cars personally, and used to run a car yard selling them. The Insured told him the vehicle was a black pearl paint job…which was never offered on this model of car (Red Flag 9) .. The Insured was supposed to send him a photo, but instead sent him an email saying he was ‘under the pump’ and would be able to do it till later in the week(Red Flag 10) .. This is followed hours later by the emails to us asking to put (valuer 2) on hold. (Valuer 2) thinks that, once he started to poke hole in Insureds story, he realised he was full of shit. (Valuer 2) also says he thinks Insured might be on drugs(Red Flag 11) .….. He sends us a valuation at $13k – but says this is high for this vehicle. He only offered to do it at $13k as a favour to us – really it should be around $10k.
Insured then contacts our claims manager to complain about the length of time this is taking – she tells him that until we have the report from the investigator, we cannot do anything on this claim. Insured calls her again on Wednesday and says that he’s talking to his lawyer (Red Flag 14) and they might look to go to the insurance ombudsman. He then states that because of ‘all this pressure’ he is going to cancel his holiday over the Easter period (Red Flag 15) because he doesn’t want to pay the interest on his car loan while he was away. Claims Manager points out that, had the car not been stolen, he would have been paying this anyway. Oh and his partner who is not going with him needs a car while he is away and cannot drive his work car (this becomes important soon). He says if the claim is accepted before he goes away he won’t cancel his holiday.
CW1 then calls the company providing the finance. They give us how much is owing (a little under $10k) and, unofficially, tell us that he was behind on his payments (Red Flag 16) . The investigators report the comes in, and essentially says the claim stinks but we have nothing that can prove anything either way. We talk internally and decide that the investigator should talk to the Insured’s partner – at which point we note that apparently the reason he took his personal car to work on the day it was stolen was because his partner was away in (12 hour away city) with the company car.
THE WHEELS ON YOUR LIES ARE FALLING OFF, FALLING OFF, FALLING OFF
We also get the auction records from (Auction site) – which shows the vehicle was listed for approx. 5 months, starting at $14k or nearest offer, then steadily dropping to $10k reserve (Red Flag 17) . We ask him about this and he tells us his partner was responsible for the listing and accidentally put in the wrong information – and it was under her account. So we go and interview her when he’s not around. She tell us that he definitely did all the listings. We contact (Auction site) and ask for the IP addresses that the changes were made from.
At this time we also get a this-call-never-happened call from (bank) – who tell us they are also looking into Insured and have some concerns about his behaviour recently(Red Flag 18) . They give us CCTV records that confirm his work car went into the work carpark on the Saturday after his car was stolen. We’re also told the car has been recovered burnt out (but the police have yet to confirm this)
So this morning we get the IP details…and our first concrete proof that he be lying. The last several listings, including the ones where his partner ‘messed up’, were made from a (bank) IP address during business hours.
I’ll update once more information comes to light – I’m hopfully having a meeting in the next hour to plan our next move.
BACKGROUND:
The company I work for supplies the general insurance products for (bank). So everything we send out has (bank) letterhead, we tell people we work for (bank) insurance, but I’m actually employed by, paid by, and answerable to (Insurance company).
The Insured in this claim works for (bank) in a reasonably high position in the mortgage managers area – he’s high enough up the food chain to have company car, phone and direct reports.
IT BEGINS:
Insured calls up and lets us know that, he finished up at work drinks on Friday night, drove home and then walked to his mates place where he had another dozen beers or so. Stumbled home about 2:30 in the morning and goes to bed. In the morning he discovers that his car is not where he tells us he left it.
He tells us the car was recently listed for sale on (auction site) (Red Flag 1) , and has a five star alarm (Red Flag 2) . (For those who don’t know, a 5 star alarm includes 3 points of immobilisation, at least 1 backup alarm siren, motion sensors for tilt and movement, glass break sensors, rolling codes etc). He tells us he will call the police when he finishes speaking to us. With all of this information to hand, we decide to appoint and investigator. In the meantime, he needs to complete a 3 page questionnaire about his car so that we can get it valued.
He gets the form to us, we send it to (Valuer 1). Important to note on the form he says he turned down offers of $13k-$14k. At the same time, we get an update from the investigator, who notes that he was only issued with 1 key/remote when he brought the car (Red Flag 3) . We speak to the current supplier who confirms that this model of alarm ALWAYS comes with two remotes. We then get the valuation back - $13k.
CUE THE SUCKTH
We advise the Insured of this valuation – he replies that he will not accept anything less than $15k and ‘if I cannot authorise this, I need to bring it up with my boss’ (Red Flag 4) I note that the valuer did miss the details about the stereo that he installed, and ask them to review. They come back and increase the offer by $500.00 (4 year old stereo, in a car where putting an aftermarket stereo can reduce the value). I also decide to appoint (Valuer 2). This is Friday afternoon.
Between 4:00pm Friday, and 8:30am Monday, the Insured sends us 3 emails (Red Flag 5) To Parapharse -
Email the first (Friday): I gave the investigator the information Wednesday, when will this be approved
Email the second (Saturday): 2 weeks and no answer on this claim, I feel a fair turnaround will be Monday, let me know if this will not happen so I can raise it further. I have spoken to the second valuer and put him on hold (Red Flag 6)
Email the Third (Saturday): This is what I see happening from here – confirm claim approved – please put pressure on investigator. Please hold on the second valuer as we can work from the first valuation (More below on this). And I think this needs to be how its paid. Please sort this by Thursday as I am going away, if you don’t agree with my figures let me know who I can speak to for a second opinion, and I will be investigating my options externally as well ((Red Flag 7) . I have found this whole process exhausting and not customer centric. I really want to leave my 6 policies with (insurance) and sign up my 4 new houses, but am now nervous about the customer service I received (Red Flag 8) .
Email the third was also copied to (Bank Bigwig).
He also sent an email to (bank bigwig) asking who he can speak to get his way – which (bank bigwig) then sent to our relationship manager who then FYI’d me….
THE PLOT, LIKE MY GRAVY, THICKENS
Monday morning and I see the wave of crap from the weekend with his emails. I also then get a call from (Valuer 2). He then tells me that he thinks the Insured is inflating his claim, telling us its worth more than it is. He says that he has owned 4 of these particular cars personally, and used to run a car yard selling them. The Insured told him the vehicle was a black pearl paint job…which was never offered on this model of car (Red Flag 9) .. The Insured was supposed to send him a photo, but instead sent him an email saying he was ‘under the pump’ and would be able to do it till later in the week(Red Flag 10) .. This is followed hours later by the emails to us asking to put (valuer 2) on hold. (Valuer 2) thinks that, once he started to poke hole in Insureds story, he realised he was full of shit. (Valuer 2) also says he thinks Insured might be on drugs(Red Flag 11) .….. He sends us a valuation at $13k – but says this is high for this vehicle. He only offered to do it at $13k as a favour to us – really it should be around $10k.
Insured then contacts our claims manager to complain about the length of time this is taking – she tells him that until we have the report from the investigator, we cannot do anything on this claim. Insured calls her again on Wednesday and says that he’s talking to his lawyer (Red Flag 14) and they might look to go to the insurance ombudsman. He then states that because of ‘all this pressure’ he is going to cancel his holiday over the Easter period (Red Flag 15) because he doesn’t want to pay the interest on his car loan while he was away. Claims Manager points out that, had the car not been stolen, he would have been paying this anyway. Oh and his partner who is not going with him needs a car while he is away and cannot drive his work car (this becomes important soon). He says if the claim is accepted before he goes away he won’t cancel his holiday.
CW1 then calls the company providing the finance. They give us how much is owing (a little under $10k) and, unofficially, tell us that he was behind on his payments (Red Flag 16) . The investigators report the comes in, and essentially says the claim stinks but we have nothing that can prove anything either way. We talk internally and decide that the investigator should talk to the Insured’s partner – at which point we note that apparently the reason he took his personal car to work on the day it was stolen was because his partner was away in (12 hour away city) with the company car.
THE WHEELS ON YOUR LIES ARE FALLING OFF, FALLING OFF, FALLING OFF
We also get the auction records from (Auction site) – which shows the vehicle was listed for approx. 5 months, starting at $14k or nearest offer, then steadily dropping to $10k reserve (Red Flag 17) . We ask him about this and he tells us his partner was responsible for the listing and accidentally put in the wrong information – and it was under her account. So we go and interview her when he’s not around. She tell us that he definitely did all the listings. We contact (Auction site) and ask for the IP addresses that the changes were made from.
At this time we also get a this-call-never-happened call from (bank) – who tell us they are also looking into Insured and have some concerns about his behaviour recently(Red Flag 18) . They give us CCTV records that confirm his work car went into the work carpark on the Saturday after his car was stolen. We’re also told the car has been recovered burnt out (but the police have yet to confirm this)
So this morning we get the IP details…and our first concrete proof that he be lying. The last several listings, including the ones where his partner ‘messed up’, were made from a (bank) IP address during business hours.
I’ll update once more information comes to light – I’m hopfully having a meeting in the next hour to plan our next move.
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