Insurance companies
I am sure the people who work at insurance companies are pretty decent people and I don’t envy them their task at the moment as I suspect millions of dollars of claims will be coming in. There will be an exceptional amount of work required to process all of these. I haven’t tested my current company yet, although I would suspect that any flood claim would be reasonably straight forward. Or at least, I would hope so.
I have only claimed a handful of times in my life and the second-to-last claim was enough to make me change companies. Paul, my ex, had bought an expensive car while shearing in Invercargill. We had wanted another car, just not one quite so expensive. I think he got carried away in the moment. When he rang to tell me this, he immediately followed up with the idea that he would resell it in Auckland and get something cheaper. However, the same model car in Auckland was already cheaper than what he had paid for it in Invercargill. So, the decision was made to keep it. That was fine and it was a nice car. Each year the insurance company devalued it. What started out as paying insurance for a $32,000 vehicle was whittled down to a premium for a $12,000 one. It is ironic that flooding will be the majority of the claims after Cyclone Gabrielle and it was a flood incident that caused my ire back in the 1990s or it could have even been the 80s, I can’t remember the exact year. Paul got caught in a flood while driving home one night, deeming the car a write-off. All is well so far, until it came to the pay-out. The insurance company offered a mere $2000, saying that was all that the car was worth. So, each year, the insurance company had lessened the value of the car and happily accepted our payments. Naturally, we weren’t expecting to receive $32,000, which was what we had paid for the car, but we definitely expected to get the $12,000 as that was the last valuation of the car and the amount with which our payment was based on. So basically, they were ripping us off each year, basing their charges that year on a $12,000 vehicle but only ever intending to pay out $2000. If we had sold it before the flood damage, we would have been able to get 12k for it. We actually ended up buying the car back off them, I can’t remember how much for, but that was the end of ever dealing with that company again. We felt totally ripped off.
My second negative dealing, with a different company this time, was when I travelled to the Gold Coast one year. I dropped my expensive camera, deeming it inoperable. The repair person told me it was not worth spending the money trying to fix it. The insurance company wouldn’t pay out, telling me the camera was not covered as I wasn’t at home. Hello, do cameras stay inside the house? According to this insurance company, they do. I couldn’t think of anything more stupid – I get that some things mightn’t be covered whilst away, but a camera should be covered wherever anyone is, after all cameras are used to capture holiday moments and the like. Again, not a happy customer.
The idea for today’s blog came from Genevieve’s friend’s experience with her insurance company two days ago. Her friend was expecting to travel to Auckland on Wednesday by bus and fly out of Auckland today back to France, but due to the devastation caused from Cyclone Gabrielle, yesterday all domestic flights were cancelled, all buses were cancelled and the roads were closed between here and Auckland. As the friend explained this to her insurance company, she was told that her flight out of the country was not affected, this was a New Zealand thing and thus they would not cover the cost of changing her ticket to a day that she could get to Auckland. Never mind that at that stage, she thought there was no way of reaching the airport.
That left just one option and that was for Genevieve to try and drive the five-hour journey to Auckland, even though on Tuesday night, all routes were marked as closed. Fortunately, Genevieve found a way to reach the airport, incorporating a few detours on the way. So much for having insurance for such things.
In balance, I have had some successful claims too. In my first few days here on the Peninsular a massive storm picked up the neighbour’s smoker, smashing it into three of my windows. My insurance company paid out without a qualm.
May everyone’s company treat their customers with respect in this latest disaster and pay out for the things people think they are insured for.