The other day I had to call the insurance company. Initially it was to call the Customer Services centre to cancel our premiums as we are moving to a different insurance company. The reason for the move will become evident soon.
My second act was to contact the Claims team concerning a claim we’ve had going since December 2023.
Mrs Wookie had a crash because a lady pulled out of an intersection that was controlled by a stop sign. My wife had nowhere to go but into the side of the other car. This naturally wrote off both vehicles.
What should be a clear cut case has in fact turned into 10 months of hell. I’ve had very little contact from them but the reason for my call was to chase up an email I sent them last week.
That email was basically with regard to the wreck. You see, on the 31 August they sent me an email saying we could have the wreck for $800. I was happy with that but this issue came up earlier in the year so I called them around the 1st or 2nd of September to see if that was the case, that we could get the wreck for $800. They confirmed it and all seemed good.
So on the 11th September I get a trailer and drive an hour away to where our wreck was sitting. This was making the panel beater happy as the wreck had been sitting with them for 9 months. I then took about an hour and a half to drive home as the trailer was wobbling. It turned out I was like 2 inches too far back. I found this from the cop who pulled me over.
So any way on the 23rd September our insurance company sends us an invoice that they are going to pay us of the agreed upon value of the vehicle minus the excess (that’s another issue we’ve had) and minus the wreck value of $3250.
So yes, you better believe that I was refusing to authorise that payment because I don’t know if your maths is like mine but mine says there is a massive difference between $800 and $3250.
The phone call to Claims went round in circles and led to me hanging up because I was getting nowhere. I do feel for the poor girl on the other end because she was just doing her job but that job apparently is screwing over customers so the insurance company can rot for all I care.
The insurance company was wanting me to meet in the middle but I was acting on information supplied by THEM. I refused to budge because I don’t think it’s fair I should meet in the middle for THEIR stuff up.
So after hanging up I called the Insurance Ombudsman and got a very helpful chap who backed up what I said. So now I’ve got a bit of weight behind me.
It’s two days on now and I’m still to hear from my insurance company. I think I need to go to Fair Go and tell them my story. I bet things get moving then.
But it got me to thinking, why are people so rigid, myself included? I know I have genuine reason to stand my ground, but why would a company not try to put things right in order to retain customers? We had all our insurances with them and now they only have one which will be cancelled if ever this claim gets resolved.
Why are people not willing to help when in fact it seems to be human nature to do so?
If everyone helped each other then peace would flourish and there wouldn’t be helplessness and war and crime and so forth.
The Golden Rule is to treat others as we want them to treat us so why do we go out of our way to make life difficult for everyone?
There is only one word in the English language that answers that question…
Selfishness
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