Team-BHP - Car damaged in flood - Insurance companies arguing on overlapping period of coverage

Hi All

Lot has been covered on flood insurance and had lot of good information.

Mine is a bit tricky though. My 1 year old Hyundai xcent AT had a dealer provided ICICI insurance that ended on midnight of 3rd. I bought a new insurance with Royal Sundaram on the 27th of nov (1 week before flooding) which starts at 00:00 on 4th. Both have bumper to bumper zero dep insurance.

I am not getting proper response from either of them. ICICI is saying insurance is no longer active and not responding properly and Royal Sundaram is saying flood started on the 2nd itself and I have to contact previous insurer.

My car was completely submerged. How do i proceed?

Thanks
B

It was sad to hear all the sufferings Chennai people have to endure due to the flash floods. Footage of submerged cars and houses would have put the insurance companies on the back foot.

In your case, AFAIK ICICI should be responsible for your insurance claims since the incident happened while that insurance was active. The statement that their insurance is no longer active cannot be reasonable explanation for not processing the insurance. You will have to pursue them and if you do not get proper support, escalate to the highest authorities.

Good Luck!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by VolBrat (Post 3866001)

My car was completely submerged. How do i proceed?

It is immaterial when the damage due to natural calamity happened. All that matters is when are you claiming against the damages. If you are putting forth a claim today i.e in the present policy year then by all means the present Insurer is responsible for ensuring that the claim is processed which in your context is Royal Sundaram. ICICI does not any more have a say in your car insurance policy.

It's comical for RS to say that the floods started in previous policy year. If RS is not adhering to the Insurance policy which it issued, it should be brought to the notice of IRDA or ombudsman for further action.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VolBrat (Post 3866001)

When did the flooding actually start ie day you couldn't move your car due to floods. If that day is on or before 3-Dec then ICICI will pay your claim.

I would say be patient. Its a calamity, there are so many claims but no manpower to reach all. So insurance companies will work on a formula to settle the claims faster ie they will not follow the traditional way of settlement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghodlur (Post 3866130)

I disagree a little bit here. What if VolBrat was out of town and car was stolen on the night of 2-Dec. He lodges the claim after he is back on 10-Dec. Who will pay the theft claim?

Quote:

Originally Posted by F50 (Post 3867001)

.......What if VolBrat was out of town and car was stolen on the night of 2-Dec. He lodges the claim after he is back on 10-Dec. Who will pay the theft claim?

While it may be unfortunate for the current insurer needing to cover something that possibly didn't happen on their watch, it's a cost of doing business.

In your scenario, what if the car actually got stolen on the 2nd, but nobody knows for sure: customer may live in an isolated area, independent house with no security cam coverage (plenty of other plausible explanations why an incident may go unnoticed for several days) and only 'noticed' the car stolen the day he returned?

Why shouldn't he go to his 'current' insurance provider? He bought insurance, and he reported an incident in good faith during his active coverage window. Why should the onus be on him to prove when the incident actually happened down to the minutes/seconds of applicable coverage?

Not to say ICICI is blameless here, but I'd guess it would be materially impossible to prove the exact date/time the user's car was totally submerged (it may have taken hours or days depending on the extent and rapidity of flooding in his area), and if the argument comes down to the timing of the claim, ICICI will have a stronger (not necessarily right) case not to honor it as they're no longer responsible for the vehicle on the date of claim and it's impossible to prove if they were at the date/time of the incident without conclusive material proof.

Totally agree with Chetan_Rao above.

In my opinion the current insurer ie. Royal Sundaram should honour your claim.
Please escalate to the ups in RS, incase their customer care is ignoring you and pushing back to ICICI.

Here is 'my' theory / logic:

- ICICI will not have any valid record of your insurance anymore. There cannot be a backdated claim. Everyone could start claiming backdated for incidents that may have happened in past. I believe that their software / system won't allow to feed in your claim request / details.

- RS is legally obliged to honour your claim. When you went to check your car, you found it submerged. You call your current insurance company and raise claim. Period. There shouldn't be any push back from them stating "intervening night of so and so". You saw it on 10 Dec and found it submerged. At the time of discovery of incident, you were covered under RS.

Long pending update.

After the initial fight with both ICICI and RS, i registered a claim with both the insurance companies not knowing which one will take it up. Car got towed to DSC yard after a wait of 20 days. I spoke to the service adviser and the insurance desk people at the yard. They told me that most of the claims were for the 2nd / 3rd of December. They made a couple of calls and told me to go ahead with ICICI.

Since the flood was well documented and that was the day when it was officially announced as disaster zone (And also ICICI had the higher of IDV :) ), I went ahead and registered the claim / spoke to the surveyor. I was not able to get an estimate for another 20 days as there were 500+ cars ahead of mine. I finally got the quote and proceeded for total loss.

I went to ICICI Lombard office and was filling up the forms. Suddenly, the insurance guy asked me for the latest ICICI insurance copy and I told him I did not renew it with them. Then he went off for a few minutes and came back with his manager. Had to repeat the whole story about when it happened and I was still under ICICI at that point and then they finally agreed.

Meanwhile, I was asked to come to yard again to get the gate pass as ICICI towing vehicle was waiting there. DSC Hyundai said they will charge me 5k for estimation and parking at 250 per day from the day I dropped off (total of 60 days). I then negotiated with them and after a lot of haggling around, brought it down to 8k including tax. Right when i was about to get the gate pass, they found out that ICICI had transferred them 90k towards repair. Not sure how that happened.

I called up customer service and they said they will resolve in 13 days. I finally managed to get the ICICI manager's number (for Chennai) and spoke to him. He sent a mail to DSC saying they have decided to claim total loss and that DSC has to directly refund me the money. Luckily, DSC did not order any parts for me.

Finally, I got my DD today from ICICI (IDV - deductible of 1000 - 90K advance given to DSC). DSC has promised to get me a check by Friday. I've told ICICI that i will not be giving them the bank NOC until I get my 90k from DSC. Hopefully will happen this week.

Quick question, Now that the car was totaled a day before RS insurance started, is there anything i could do with the premium i paid?

Thanks to people in this thread for giving their opinion / helping out at a time of extreme stress.