Aviva Insurance - Be Aware

[srhutch]

Just found this whilst looking up something for a colleague


Please note that anyone taking out car insurance or renewing with AVIVA they will now have to pay an extra£200 excess if they wish to use a repairer of their choice in the event of a claim...
What this means to their "customers"
1/ If you have a vehicle with manufacturers warranty ,this may invalidate your warranty if you dont use the manufacturers approved repairer, but if you do, it will cost you a further £200 on top of your excess.....
2/ This is another nail on the coffin of the small rural garage that locals rely on to do their mechanical work or supply petrol along with any body work repairs.
3/ The "approved" Aviva repairers that carry out the repairs will be put under pressure by the ammount of reapirs at certain times of the year and will end up carrying out shoddy work, you will have a longer time to get your vehicle booked in.
4/ It is obvious why Aviva want you to use their "approved" repairers, MONEY........it is all down to them having body shops that will work for a "cheap rate" and offer big discounts.. for bodyshops to be able to do this, then you can be sure that corners will be cut to the repair of your vehicle for instance the use of non franchised parts or even second hand parts.

Aviva advertise how they can offer you 12 months insurance for the cost of 9............. but they are not shouting about their 2 tier excess.... any offer comes at a cost be warned............. If Aviva get off with it the rest will follow.. They obviously haven't learned from their use of overseas call centres and try to treat us all as stupid.....

Further info http://www.rac.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=9973

Hastings Direct appear to be doing the same.

 

[gannet]

cripes

that just dont seem right :|

 

[Taz]

all insurance will rip you off if they can

 

[AlanJ]

All part of the world economic downturn/crisis I think - thanks for the heads up Shrutch.

 

[mmm-five]

Not much different to the two-tier windscreen excess.

That's why I always advocate reading all the documentation as soon as possible and then pointing out any errors or points of contention to the insurer, and even cancelling if necessary.

Don't always assume your insurance policy will be unchanged if you accept a renewal quote (or have an auto-renew policy) as they will change things without telling you or, more precisely, not specifically pointing out the changes on a 'key points' note, or telling you to simply check their website for the ever changing T&Cs. I always print out the T&Cs from the website when I buy a policy that uses online documentation and keep it in a dated folder.

 

[cj10jeeper]

I actually don't have a problem with this process at all.

The accident repair centres are specialist places that do just this work, hightly controlled and to all manufacturer standards. They are the only places fully equiped (jigs, tooling, spray booths, etc.) to repair accidents effectively and to a standard. I've visited 2 or 3 and they were way ahead of the capabilities of local repair companies and BMW themselves. They don't risk shoddy work given the size and value of their contracts and in my experience bend over to collect and return vehicles, look after customers,etc. (Not all my crashes but have visited to help friends with BMW's Fords and Volvo at 3 different centres and my alignments take place in a specilaist local BMW repair centre)

If you choose to send repairs elsewhere then it will cost more due to extra paperwork, getting assessors on site, etc, so pay for it.

 

[pvr]

Your experience is different from the backstreet garages that I have seen as recommended repairers. I would not dare to park my car in the area, let alone let them touch it.

There are thousands of examples of repair standards by the "approved" repairers and it seems that a good one is an exception rather then a rule. Not sure that they even have access to all the required information for repairs such as engine parts replacements etc.

Read the small print for Swiftcover for example, they only use secondhand and patent parts when available. We all know how well patent parts are produced (think of windscreens alone that never are the same or fit the same).

Secondly, you have no come back on shoddy repairs. Go to your dealer and ask them to deal with a rust problem. "Oh sir, you car has been resprayed - and not by us, claim rejected".

I would rather pay the £200 extra for dealer repair / warranty rather then chance it and basically have no come back on anyone for bad repairs.

 

[cj10jeeper]

pvr - I'm sure there are shocking examples and I have no problem if people want to pay a premium for choice, but don't load my premium with BMW rates fro everyones accident and choice of repairer.

These are 2 local examples of the sort of place I reference:

http://www.bodyworks-midlands.co.uk/facilities.html
Last time I went in to have my 4 wheel alignment done I reckon they had a few £mm of Bimmers under repair. Made my Zed look like an old wreck next to lines of new Bimmers under repair (all with strict oem parts only)

and here's one that repaired a buddies car:
http://www.shorade.co.uk/gallery.html

 

[sp3ctre]

Read the small print for Swiftcover for example, they only use secondhand and patent parts when available. We all know how well patent parts are produced (think of windscreens alone that never are the same or fit the same).

Yeah, coz BMW springs are of such high quality

Sorry, couldn't resist....

You are spot on though, 90% (if not more) of people will not have a clue about Swiftcover's policy on replacement parts, until they come to claim.

 

[AlanJ]

I would rather pay the £200 extra for dealer repair / warranty rather then chance it and basically have no come back on anyone for bad repairs.

x2

 

[Russ59]

I have just gone with Aviva. You can check online their approved repairers.
My nearest BMW dealer is on their list so I'm happy

Stratstone BMW in Chesterfield if anyone local is thinking of using Aviva.

 

[ferrelscent]

It's another easy knee jerk reaction to have a go at the insurers. As somebody who works in the industry I like to remember that if there was no concept of pooling risk via insurance we would all have to drive cars with a top speed of 5mph for fear of an accident/liability.

Given large scale organised scams involving claimants, loss adjusters, and poor little rural garages to stage accidents and or inflate claims this approach of getting approved garages under the wing makes perfect sense to me. And most likely these garages will actually bother to put their work through the books and pay a bit of tax now and then like everybody else.

 

[pvr]

ferrelscent, it is the insurance industry in this country I have the issue with. In mainland Europe, the car is insured and not the person and non of this nonsense of "approved repairers" etc. Unfortunately, the UK insurance industry is a complete shambles and rip-off and desperately needs to be overhauled before it collapses.

 

[ferrelscent]

Nonsense

 

[ferrelscent]

I want to drive a fast car but pay low insurance premiums. I want the government to spend more but I want to pay less tax. I want to be paid well but don't want to work hard. Everything is better elsewhere in the world and we all get ripped off.

Yawn

You can read this philosophy in the Daily Mirror every day.

My advice ? Try living in Somalia.

 

[pvr]

Nonsense

Your opinion, not backed by facts. Let me list my facts:

- No country in Europe loads insurance premiums when receiving traffic fines.
- Car is not insured in the UK, person is, so you have more instances of uninsured driving due to ignorance or small print.
- Insurance is loaded after non fault accident / incident. Unfair, again only in the UK (using single sided statistical data).
- Young drivers are priced out of the market, therefore more instances of uninsured driving as it is made impossible to insure.
- There are many, many case examples of non insurance pay out due to a technicality which is not related to the incident.
- Insurance premium is the highest cost in Europe by far on average.

Due to me having clients in this industry in the UK as well as a number of European countries, I know the industry intimately and therefore having a birds eye view on it, I know what is wrong.

If the UK used the bonus malus system as used in mainland Europe, it would be a major improvement as it would be a fair system.

*edit* - at least I use facts then strange general statements ...

 

[ferrelscent]

Wonderful information.
Can you clarify for me how the use of approved garages will cause the collapse of the UK motor insurance Market.

 

[ferrelscent]

PS. I want my pension fund to grow but I don't want blue chip companies (in which it is invested..) to make good profits.

 

[AlanJ]

Easy guys......!

There’s good and bad with all types of insurance system but in the end our premiums are based on assessed risk factors of which there are several including age, previous history, type of car, use etc. It appears in the UK that we have in many instances applied perverse risk factors perhaps to inflate premiums for profit but which in themselves cause adverse/criminal behaviours – yes I believe we have effectively priced young drivers out of the market and as we are all well aware in times of financial crisis and uncertainty it is things like insurance that are often neglected or put to one side to save money.

I spend much of my work time out of the UK and in the majority of places I work it is the car that is insured and not the driver although limitations on use and policy excesses do apply to young drivers. The advantage with this is that every year as the value of my ‘foreign’ car decreases so does my policy costs together with no claims discounts etc. In the UK – every year my policy increases despite the value of my car decreasing (which in itself presents reduced risk to the insurance company).

We need a fundamental overall of the vehicle insurance system in the UK – for the life of me I can’t understand why when I got 3 points for excess speed on my licence 4 years ago this is still seen as a risk? Why when I was parked and somebody ran into my car am I penalised for this ‘no fault’ accident with increased premiums? Bonus-malus, yes provided the malus proportion is based on a sinificant fault element and not just the fact that you happen to have been the unfortunate victim of a no fault accident.

 

[ferrelscent]

AlanJ, ...agreed these discussions need balance and rationale I'm all up for that.

Re. your issue about premiums rising while value of car falls. To me the actual cost of car repairs or write offs is tiny compared to the potential cost of third party liability and unfortunately the latter grows year on year in an increasingly litigious environment. I think this is what is pushing up premiums generally,...the value of your car is barely on the radar. It's all too easy to get hung up on the ratio of an insurance premium to the value of a car, but it's the millions that may need to be paid out to others that needs to be Bourne in mind. To me a few hundred quid a year to rid me of that level of liability is an exceedingly good deal.