What insurer for good aftercare & claims handling?

[Andy135]

I'm about to buy insurance for a Disco and plugged the details in to one of the insurance comparison sites. All the quotes seem reasonable but I'm curious to hear of any experiences (good or bad) any PW'ers have had on claims handling/payouts etc to help me decide on what insurer to choose.

 

Hopefully, I'll never have to find out, but I don't want to select the cheapest insurer, for example, only to find that they try to wriggle out of paying if I should need to make a claim.

 

The cheapest three quotes are from Swiftcover, AXA and Quotemehappy.com. Anyone have any experience of claiming with any of these, or can anyone recommend a good insurer for claims handling?

[PhilR]

I was tailended whilst stopped in a queue of traffic. The female driver admitted liability and within 90 minutes her insurance company contacted me to arrange repairs to my car, a loan car, and are now paying for a course of physiotherapy to my neck and shoulder. I cannot fault how they've treated me. The company is Churchill, when my policy is up for renewal I'll certainly get them to quote.

[chrisjh]

all of those have a decent pedigree, most insurance companies have several brands so swiftcover & AXA are the same company Quotemehappy is an Aviva online offering which was Norwich Union not to long ago, Churchill is part of Direct Lines stable which i think is still RBS.

 

most good insurers will take control of a clear liability claim keeps cost down stick with names you recognise usually best bet all as good & bad as each other most of the time it comes down to the claims handler on the phone that day

[Paddy Galore!]

i use aviva, they're pretty good at sorting things, funnily enough there was a review recently about the best insurance firms to deal with and NFU mutual came out on top.

[al4x]

I was tailended whilst stopped in a queue of traffic. The female driver admitted liability and within 90 minutes her insurance company contacted me to arrange repairs to my car, a loan car, and are now paying for a course of physiotherapy to my neck and shoulder. I cannot fault how they've treated me. The company is Churchill, when my policy is up for renewal I'll certainly get them to quote.

That is more likely down to stopping your own insurers pointing you at a claims management company and it costing them twice as much

[fenboy]

I insured with quote me happy , had a quite extensive accident and every thing was handled perfectly , I was phoned by the approved repairer at least twice a week to update me on progress it took four weeks to finish the repairs and I was provided with another car for that period .

 

The car was also repaired using genuine parts which needs considering especially if its a vehicle thats new enough to still be covered by the makers warranty.

[PhilR]

That is more likely down to stopping your own insurers pointing you at a claims management company and it costing them twice as much

You've hit the nail on the head there al4x.

 

When I phoned my insurer's helpline I was automatically put through to a claims management company and spent 45 minutes talking to some minnion only to discover that I still needed to be put through to an underwriter to tell them I wasn't making a claim.

 

I was chased from pillar to post by these blasted ambulance chasers who wanted me to hire a car through them and to make an injury claim - worth thousands they told me. They just wouldn't accept that I'd settled amicably with the 3rd party insurers.

 

This policy was taken out through the Post Office but it's just them fronting it and they earn a cut from the claims management side of things. The underwriter was fed up with them too as he was copping the irate customers afterwards. The actual insurer I'm with is Chaucer and the underwriter said they do a better deal direct than through front facing companies like the Post Office or other household names.

[THE MEK]

All of them will shaft you if they get half a chance

[beeredup]

had two claims with Tesco including a written off vehicle and they have always been very good at handling the claims, the only thing that annoyed me a little bit was the last claim when some old duffer in a citroen people carrier/mini bus thing drove into the corner of the bumper of the jetta and made a fair mess of it including scuffing the tyre and wheel whilst the wife was sat in it in a car park! the thing that annoyed me that by lunch time on the day after the claim the injuries claims team had pestered me 4 times!! when i had told them the first time that no one was injured!

[Davyo]

The thing with insurance is they flog you information to the highest bidder.If I remember rightly I was told that if damage to a car is over a certain limmit there is automatically monies put to one side for compo.How I found this out was I owned a S Type and my wife cought the door leaving our drive on a security bollard which cut into the 2 offside doors.As you can imagine due to the type of car the repairs was quite expensive and I got pestered for months by this claims comp telling me the date of the insident and everything.I kept hanging up on them and also returned their text saying go away.Eventually I got that sick of the calls I said to the young chap how did he obrain the information and why they are so persistant.He said the insurance comp sell the info the highest bidder and due to the cost of repair, REGARDLESS OF INJURY, your wife, son and mother in lae are ent to compo.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Davyo