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| Generic media picture of a minor accident, to grab reader attention |
Well, the bad news is that the Contesse has
had a minor accident in her car. The much better news is that no-one was hurt, the
accident was not her fault (someone ran into the back of her car at a give-way
at a T-junction - unless they reversed into you, it is pretty much a given that
if you drive into the back of someone it is your fault), the damage is not very
serious (a new rear bumper panel will sort it out, though it is a bit of a
shame, considering the vehicle is less than a year old), the car is still driveable
and everything should be sorted in a week or two. Things, in short, could be
much, much worse; motor accidents can wreck lives in an instant, so we have to be very, very grateful, and it is a useful reminder not to take so many blessings for granted.
We have very few mishaps on the road, I am
delighted to say, so we have little opportunity to develop any well-grooved
procedures for dealing with this sort of situation. However, we have had the
same insurer for 15 years or so now, we are quite happy with them (efficient,
and very competitive charges) and we have a good idea of what you do if you have a bump.
The last time I had a vehicle off the road
after an accident was two cars and six years ago when someone ran into my pick-up
when it was parked (definitely not my fault, I was somewhere else at the time,
Your Honour). The procedure was simple enough - I contacted my insurer (the
same one as now), they booked the truck into a repair shop, who came and took it away, and lent me a courtesy car - a
tiny, bright pink Ford Ka, with "Excelsior Coach Repairs" written on
both doors in large black letters. It did the job, though the painted
advertising does imply a subtitle: "KEEP AWAY FROM THIS ONE - HE HAS
ACCIDENTS". The claim was settled, life carried on.
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| Generic picture of a courtesy car |
This time more people were involved. A lot
more. And there are a lot of added-value services laid on - if you expect someone else's insurer to pay for all this, it is tempting to just keep saying yes - why
not? Everyone else does.
Interesting. The insurance company were
efficient and businesslike, as ever, and provided the Contesse with contact
numbers and details of the repair shop and the "car-rental company",
who would be in touch. They also encouraged her to upgrade to a larger rental vehicle
than the basic courtesy car on offer, which seemed surprising in an age when we are all
trying to keep costs (and premiums) down. So she agreed to that, and, as promised,
people began to ring up. Within a couple of hours everything was in motion.
The Contesse was not comfortable with the
contact from the car-rental people, who asked her a whole pile of questions
about the circumstances of the accident which seemed to be out of scope for
their part in this deal. It turns out that they are not a car-rental firm at
all, they are a credit hire company. They offer delivery to your home, and
collection (which is attractive, since we live on the Dark Side of the Moon),
they will obtain for you an over-spec vehicle, and the Terms and Conditions,
legal small print and lists of fees and penalties run for screens and screens
of the email attachments. With alarm bells clanging, she did some
research online and found a lot of hostile client reviews - what used to be a
minimal extra service provided as part of an insurance claim appears to have become a major
scam industry. Apart from the wasted cost contributed by the insurers, the credit-hire firm
and the rental vehicle providers all lining each others' pockets (yes, there are
commission payments travelling upstream as well, so it was in the insurance
company's interest to recommend a vehicle upgrade), details of the parties
involved are also sold to the market, so that clients are subsequently beset by phonecalls
from so-called lawyers, encouraging them to make further claims for whiplash, post
traumatic shock, loss of earnings and that mysterious fungal growth in the lawn. It
is, basically, a scam. A scam, moreover, which fits right into that much-loved
British ideal of an industry which contributes very little, but generates
income for an extra level of parasite. The courtesy car add-on associated with
a car repair used to involve maybe two people to set it up, and cost very
little. Now it involves about half a dozen people, who inflate costs and pay each
other commission, and it just milks the system.
No wonder that:
(a) unemployment levels in this ridiculous,
bankrupt nation are lower than you would expect, though our output in goods and
genuine services continues to shrivel.
(b) insurance premiums are unnecessarily high,
and lawyers are never short of a few bob.
(c) the insurance industry (in which I worked for many years) is so widely despised and mistrusted.
Anyway - the ending. After a fairly short
period of consideration, the Contesse called the insurer, and also emailed them, and cancelled the courtesy car. They can
stick it up their corporate bottom, though of course she did not tell them
this. They were pretty sniffy about it, and not prepared to discuss their business relationship with the "car-rental firm". We have email confirmations, and names
of the people she spoke to on the phone, at both the insurance company and the
credit hire mob. If some poor chaps turn up with a big, posh rental car for us
on Wednesday then we know nothing about it, and they may take it away. They can
hardly charge for a service they haven't provided. We shall cope with the
vehicles we already have - my wife can use my car for a few days, I'll use my van, and we'll
write off any small inconvenience against the money we have saved everyone, and
the illusion of a tiny victory against a dodgy system.
Watch out for insurance claim add-ons. I cannot
believe this is a uniquely British problem, though we seem to have a remarkable talent
for creating money-making scams of this type.
