# Wheelie Bin Damage to Car (no joke)



## rory22 (6 Feb 2008)

I placed a post about damage done to my car by a neighbours wheelie bin which was blown around in last weeks storm, it turned into a bit of a joke which gave me a good laugh. Unfortunately I stopped smiling when i got the repair bill. The guy who priced it spent about 10 minutes trying to convince me to go through the insurance, I said I felt the damage was not worth claiming on but he seemed uninterested in a non-insurance job, he even told me he could 'Beef' up the price to cover any excess. Surly this kind of practice is illegal? It's no wonder insurance in this country is so high.


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## Caveat (6 Feb 2008)

rory22 said:


> he even told me he could 'Beef' up the price to cover any excess. Surly this kind of practice is illegal? It's no wonder insurance in this country is so high.


 
It's a disgrace, and I'm sure it's illegal (insurance fraud really?) - but it's what I've been told on *every* occasion I've needed repair quotes.  This is from 'reputable' main dealers BTW.


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## demoivre (6 Feb 2008)

Rang a guy in 06 to  get a windscreen replacement quote - didn't know the guy and vice versa. His answer was €X for cash, €Y for cheque and €Z if it was going through insurance and the €Z figure was the max. amount that the  insurance co. would payout for windscreen replacement!


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## rory22 (6 Feb 2008)

It just seems crazy, we all pay at the end of the day with higher premiums, while the these fraudsters line there pockets!


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## potnoodler (6 Feb 2008)

Assuming that ins companies are aware , which I'm sure they're why do they get their customers to snitch them up and them blacklist them


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## paddywhacker (7 Feb 2008)

That's atrocious. Was watching a programme about insurance scams on Ch4 the other night where insurance companies seem to treat every claim as guilty until proven innocent, and I'm wondering if why they don't look into the garages a little more closely than the claimants.


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## Sylvester3 (7 Feb 2008)

I saw that show as well - I felt really sorry for the man from Eastern Europe who I thought was treated very badly. It was obvious in his case that the insurance investigator was looking for any anomaly so that they could reject the entire claim. Poor guy was still waiting after 10 months, which is a disgrace. Real scamsters deserve all they get though.


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## GOBSTOPPER (7 Feb 2008)

THOUGHT HE WAS SCAMMING MYSELF. its a well known M.O. that scammers buy expensive electronic equipment ,keep all packaging and receipts to show to insurance investigators and set up a break in . They leave no room for the insurance company to refuse their claim as they have boxes ,reciepts police report etc while the products are in their mates house.simple really and it happens alot.once the person claiming is not a serial claimer then they cant refuse to payout without any evidence.


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## Sylvester3 (7 Feb 2008)

But then you are only suspecting he is scamming because of his background, which seems prejudicial to me. If there is no evidence of a scam, and all the documents are in order and correct, surely he is entitled to be treated as innocent of any fraudulent activity? Otherwise it is guilty until proven innocent. I would hate to claim off Norwich Union.


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## ailbhe (7 Feb 2008)

The only reason they flagged him was not his nationality but the fact that he had such expensive equiptment but lived in an impoverished area therefore it sent up a flag. 
They don't treat all claims as suspicious. If something seems unusual or out of the ordinary they will check it out.

"I would hate to claim off Norwich Union" Hope you're not insured with Hibernian so!

"Poor guy was still waiting after 10 months, which is a disgrace. Real scamsters deserve all they get though" If they don't investigate unusual claims how will they find the real scamsters?


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## Midsummer (7 Feb 2008)

If you do decide to go through your insurance they'll probably tell you which garage is approved & you can go through them.  Cuts out the scammers I suppose.  

(Though I had a car written off a couple of years ago - went through an approved garage etc. & it ended up being sold on by the same garage even though it was an official write-off and I was hassled for ages by the garage who bought it for my registration even though I had sent it to the Dept. of Environment with "written off" on it.  Worst part is my insurance company obviously gave my contact details for the garage to ring me about it !)...


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## GA001 (8 Feb 2008)

Sylvester3 said:


> But then you are only suspecting he is scamming because of his background, which seems prejudicial to me. If there is no evidence of a scam, and all the documents are in order and correct, surely he is entitled to be treated as innocent of any fraudulent activity? Otherwise it is guilty until proven innocent. I would hate to claim off Norwich Union.


 
Of course the documentary was not going to disclose all facts they have that may give rise to a fraudulent claim on air..

Apart from what Ailbhe posted, there was obviously a few more red flags that were made public.. they are not going to 'just not pay out' for no apparent reason.


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## joanmul (15 Feb 2008)

As far as I know the insurance co's have stipulated to many policy holders that they won't consider quotes for crash repairs from garages that are not main dealers. Many policy holders don't know that they can insist on getting their own repair man to do the job. This leads to the situation where a quote can be obtained from a main dealer that can be ve-e-e-ry high and then they get their own man to do the job and pocket the difference. One of the reasons for this happening is the majority of people feel ripped off by the insurance co's and are getting it back when the opportunity arises. When you have a bad experience with an insurance co it is easy to tar them all with the same brush and at the end of the day what insurance co is impoverished, struggling etc etc.


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## ailbhe (15 Feb 2008)

Joan, usually the insurance cos use main dealers to ensure the work is done as it prevents people claiming for damage, getting their brother/friend etc to falsify a bill and pocketing the cash.
There are usually incentives to go to the insurance companies approved  repairers (such as car hire). If there is an issue with an approved repairer (delays, shoddy work) then complain to the company as they WILL deal with it. It is in the companies interest to have repairers they can trust to do the work properly, it benefits the repairer as they recieve a large amount of business and it really doesn't make any difference to the customer as all they have to pay is the excess. The only time I've heard of it being a problem for the insured was if they wanted to go to,say, a Ford garage as they bought a ford car there. That is fair enough and the insurance co will allow that. They just want to ensure repairs are carried out properly.


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