Joehatz

An article in the National Post this morning reported that a person had been denied insurance claim on totalled vehicle because exhaust had been changed,
No end to what insurance companies will do so they don't have to pay. In the end they did pay the claim.

https://driving.ca/subaru/auto-news/...his-sports-car

.2PDK

If there's anyone here surprised by this please raise your hand...

OttawaSteve

https://rennlist.com/forums/718-gts-...aust-mods.html

theiceman

in a somewhat related insurance thing i was wondering about .. so you get super low insurance rates at one of those companies like CAA ( just an example ) you get 2 maybe even 1 ticket and they drop you as you have to have a clean record . Now you have to get insurance and state you have been denied insurance now ?

That would be a nightmare i would imagine.

Yeah the no changes from stock thing, has been around decades, but very rarely enforced.

911 Rod

The first job for all claims department is to deny the claim. Always.

Turbodan

if you have too many tickets or accidents etc, they usually don't cancel you, they just inform you that they will not renew when your policy is due. a friend is going through this right now.

Turbodan

end of the day Desjardins could not blame the accident on the exhaust so they had to pay. These insurance companies will try everything to avoid paying.
I wonder if they had actually gone through and denied coverage, would they refund his premiums paid after the exhaust was installed?

Muskoka

This is why I tell the insurance company I have mods. If they don't want to insure me, my wife, our perfect driving records, etc. then I'll find someone who will.

I couldn't disagree more with Rod's comment. In general, you'd find more instances of obvious overpayment, and companies don't want to deny claims, because it provides huge, negative brand implications. They want to be fair, and get to a solution quickly. However, in this case, the insured didn't provide all of the information, which resulted in the insurance company not pricing them correctly. This is the issue the insurance company has. Mods put you in a different pricing bucket, due to higher risk. If you don't want to pay for this, don't mod your car, or don't expect an easy time if you have a claim.

Crazy Canuck

The same insurance companies that insist on repairing your car using substandard aftermarket parts after a collision.

Christien

That's not been my experience at all. Through work, I've had to go to bat for customers dozens of times. Probably about 85% of the time I was able to get the insurance company to come up. At least 40 or 50% of the time they grossly undervalued the payout and wouldn't provide their sources of valuation (Kingsway, I'm looking in your direction). Almost every time I provided them with multiple valuation samples, they matched what I asked them for. This leads me to believe that what Rod says is true. Mind you, this is going to bat for customers who were all leasing vehicles in the 18-36% APR bracket, so maybe insurance companies take a harder line with the sub-prime market, expecting less push back from customers. I certainly never once had an insurance company over-value a claim.

Muskoka

I get your point, and there are certainly outliars. Especially on more exotic or special cars, where there can be a wide range in the JD Power/Kelley Blue Book/etc. valuations. Perhaps, "over valuation" would be too strong a term, but the total value of the claims is often higher than it needs to be, once people hold their rental cars too long, let it sit in tow yards, etc. Insurance companies are incentivized to settle quickly to reduce cycle time to reduce these other costs, which is why you can often negotiate upwards. First offer is likely baselined in the ACV/RCV of the established valuations from JDP/KBB, albeit everyone thinks their car is in better condition than it actually is.

Anyways, just my opinion, although I have some work experience in the area.

Christien

Believe it or not, the few times I was able to get the actual report from the adjuster, it was almost always a bunch of auto trader ads, copied and pasted. And usually base models, regardless of trim package of the insured's car, and often from small towns a few hours north, where prices are lower.

Turbodan

I deal with this regularly. Very rare almost never happens that they provide a value higher than market. pretty much happens rarely when they are mistaken that it is a higher end model.
the reports do use local advertised cars but often are not realistic with regard to options etc. The insurance companies are becoming very cheap and now take back rental car as soon as they make an offer, try to get car towed so no storage and now don't even send an appraiser-they ask the shop to supply photos and mark all cars as average condition, this allows them to get an offer out quick and hopefully settle. Dealing with insurance is similar to banks...all they care about is profit. they really don't care about bad pr or "negative brand implications". Another thing they do is many of the adjusters seriously are uneducated and can't add 2+2, and they are always on vacation or sick. You really have to know how to deal with them and threaten arbitration umpire before they treat customers seriously. I have lots of stories on this topic, like the time the adjuster found out the insured was terminal and delayed the claim intentionally.

JasonKM

similar to Christien, I once helped a a friend on written off small SUV. While it was about 10yrs, it had super low mileage (30K kms in 10yrs) and dealer maintained. The adjuster was using high mileage base models from shady dealers from ads in Auto Trader. We simply sent our own comparables, being low mileage dealer advertised vehicles that were truely comparable. Suddenly the adjuster accepted them and also partially paid for winter tires.
The adjuster is just going their job. You need to justify your position for asking for more and usually should be smooth sailing, but think of it as what you would actually get if you had to sell your car and you won't always get what you think it is worth or what you have in it, especially if you just recently spent money on repairs or upgrades.

911 Rod

Personally in the last 8 years I have had 1 collision, 2 windshield, and 2 house claims denied.
We won every one of them, but it is a bit upsetting.