[amit.toshniwal]

While I have always laughed at the advertisements where a common man runs around for Insurance claims settlements thanks to the 50 black days with Chola Motor Insurance I can say I have experienced the same. The entire experience of 50 black days with Chola Motor Insurance from claim intimation till now has been so painful and full of harassment for me that I am thankful to God that I do not have a life insurance with Chola. God forbid in case of my demise and had I had a life Insurance with Chola my family would have never ever received the claim settlement.

Below is the chronological series of events that have happened for Toyota Protect Insurance Policy with Chola Motor Insurance for my Toyota Etios

• 09 July 2016- Accident happened between 3.30 pm and 4.00 pm IST at Jalgaon Maharashtra
• 10 July 2016-Claim Intimation reference number provided (I was in hospital and still did intimation)
• 12 July 2016-Car Delivered to the Toyota Dealer at Jalgaon
• 01 Aug 2016-Confirmation on car being a total loss by Insurance Surveyor
• 16 Aug 2016-Confirmation on Salvage Buyer selection by Chola
• 19 Aug 2016- Meeting arranged at Jalgaon with Salvage Buyer. No buyer available for 2 days- 19,20 Aug 2016. I had specifically taken leave
  from office and travelled with my medical condition and injured hand. There are multiple stories told about the salvage buyer none of which are believable. Wastage of my 2 days time and cost of entire travel- INR 9300
• 22 Aug 2016-Approached Toyota Protect head of customer care
• 25 Aug 2016-First ever response from Dy. Manager Team Leader-Claims Pune committing all process to be cleared by 29th Aug 2016.
• 27 Aug 2016-Status updates on email and details of the bank from which the DD will be drawn- Not received
• 29 Aug 2016-Scan of the DD on email along with KYC details of the salvage buyer by 12 PM IST- Not Received till now
• 29 Aug 2016-Salvage Buyer to meet me for documentation at my Mumbai location at the shared location at the scheduled time- Not happened till now
• 29 Aug 2016-DD to be deposited into my account upon which I will be authorizing the pick up of the car- Not happened till now

• Total number of calls made to surveyor- 22, Total minutes of discussion- 42
• Total number of calls made to Car Trade-18, Total minutes of discussion – 37
• Total number of calls made to Dy. Manager Claims Settlement-8, Total minutes of discussion- 21

Standing on the 50th day of claim intimation absolutely harassed with no intimation, communication and missing all levels of customer service and commitments-Priceless



My confidence in the build and quality of Toyota cars has been reinforced by the fact that I am saved and am alive. However I have my personal opinion based on my experience about the collaborative relationship between Toyota Protect and Chola Motor Insurance. Actions of one of them is impacting the brand name of the other.

I have even dropped a mail to the Chief Grievance Redressal Officer Mr. A Prabhakar who also happens to be their India VP operations but no response yet. Not even an acknowledgement.

The best part if that the only two people who are following up and communicating are me and the Head at Toyota Protect.

Requesting Team- BHPians for your inputs and experiences on how this situation can be handled. I will also be posting the same synopsis on Facebook with the link of Team BHP post as soon as it is approved.

[Zappo]

Considering that the car dealers are so keen to push their own insurance policies in the name of quick settlements etc. I think this case is a live testament of how factual (or rather non-factual) those pie-in-the-sky stories are!

One thing I am still not clear about is that who is playing games here? The Chola Insurance folks or is that Toyota? I thought it was the insurance company but at the end of the story I ended up getting somewhat confused!

[ghodlur]

That's a bad accident, thank God you came out with minor injuries (as I can see blood on the driver seat). Hope you have recovered now. Its shameful on the part of Toyota or Chola to play the games with you. The issues with a specific brand tie up with an insurance co are many. Finally it is always the brand one has to deal with and not the Insurance co which is very much evident from Amit's experience. I think it is clearly Toyota's fault here as they are the front for this mess. It is not very clear as to why Toyota was deliberately missing the payment deadline. Maybe Amit can throw more light on this.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by amit.toshniwal

My confidence in the build and quality of Toyota cars has been reinforced by the fact that I am saved and am alive.

Thanks for the tip on Chola. We know who to avoid now.

I'm glad that you made it out okay. That looks like a serious crash (I see blood on the driver's seat). Care to explain what exactly happened?

Originally Posted by Zappo

Considering that the car dealers are so keen to push their own insurance policies in the name of quick settlements etc. I think this case is a live testament of how factual (or rather non-factual) those pie-in-the-sky stories are!

End of the day, dealers will always sell the policy that gives them the highest commission. Anyone who believes that his claim process will be simpler because of buying insurance from the dealer has simply been misled.

[amit.toshniwal]

I was traveling with family to Jalgaon. The road from Dhule to Jalgaon is a single lane highway with no Dividers. Around 10 km from the city there is a blind turn. At the blind turn there was a bus coming from the other side that rammed into my car. From the investigation it was found that the bus had a mechanical axle failure and the bus went out of control and hit my car. Luckily I had quite some luggage so the car didnt roll over when the car spun twice and came to a halt.

While I was driving I just remember that before the accident which could have been head on collision I had tried to steer the car to the left and had a hit on the driver side. After that I had blacked out for a couple of minutes.

Luckily both the airbags were deployed. I was wearing seat belt in front seat and my family was sitting in rear seat. My wife and kid both were wearing seat belts they suffered no injuries. As there were glass pieces that broke from the window 13 of them got embedded in my hand till the bone, 2 pieces shot through and through. My Right hand had around 30 stitches which recently got removed.

I agree to all people that Insurance Companies have these gimmicks while sales is being done. I had got 5 calls in one day from them.

I am surprised that Toyota even has a collaboration with them when it is impacting the Toyota brand.

I had taken the zero dep insurance with a brand promise of Toyota Protect but am frankly disappointed.

[tilt]

Pardon me for my ignorance on this issue, but why should you, the insured, have to meet with the salvage buyer at all? That whole process would be between the insurance company and the salvage buyer. Your only interface should be the insurance company and that's it.

The insurance company would pay you out, and then do the salvage portion etc. in its own time, not on your time.

Cheers

[amit.toshniwal]

Thats exactly what I have been trying to argue but the Insurance company says that the procedure and that I will need to sign the documents to hand over the salvage to the dealer.

I forgot to mention that I have always been communicated that the Salvage buyer is CarTrade. Not sure what is the level of authenticity in what I am being communicated.

[Zappo]

Have you tried to rope in the ombudsman into this case? I suggest you do that. I am not sure how Insurance companies can transfer their work on you as an obligation!

[amit.toshniwal]

Today after the numerous amount of followups, escalations and all followups, I did receive a major part of the salvage buyer's amount which is 35% of the total IDV on paper. The Insurance company has agreed to settle the remaining part of the salvage buyers amount in next 2 days on email. Only after receiving the entire amount of salvage committed on mail will I will be signing the documentation with the Insurance company and Salvage buyer. They also have agreed on email to settle the balance amount-65% of the IDV in one week's time.

Atleast some motion seen after so much of agony for me. I have been shouting so much that literally I have a sore throat.

Let me monitor the process of settlement of the remaining amount through for a week. In case there is still an issue I agree with Zappo I will involve ombudsman from IRDA.

Thanks for the tip.

[Engine_Roars]

Originally Posted by amit.toshniwal

Today after the numerous amount of

Atleast some motion seen after so much of agony for me. I have been shouting so much that literally I have a sore throat.

Let me monitor the process of settlement of the remaining amount through for

Thanks for the tip.

Team-Bhp effect? Could be. Nothing hurts these companies more than negative publicity. No matter what, good that things are moving. Let's hope you are out of this mess real soon.

[highway_star]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have a Toyota Protect insurance policy from Chola (taken from dealer at the time of purchase) for my Etios which is nearly one year old and due for renewal. I compared the renewal quote from them with other companies and found that they are charging around Rs 7,000 more for same IDV and similar terms. I was thinking about whether it is worth paying more for a Toyota branded policy. Now I have my answer.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by amit.toshniwal

a bus coming from the other side that rammed into my car.
My Right hand had around 30 stitches which recently got removed..

After such a bad bash and nursing your hand which has had multiple stitches , and a head full of pressure , you have taken the pains to type out your posts .Hats Off

We had one villain in the Auto Insurance sector , now we have another one.For them only the inflow is important , not the outflow.

[amit.toshniwal]

Update on 7 Sep 2016

After the first part of payment was received on 1st Sep 2016 the Insurance Company and Toyota protect has committed that the balance payment will be done in 2 days but now again 6 days later and with 3 mails, 9 phone calls and multiple whatsapp messages later the balance payment from the salvage buyer is still pending.

The most surprising part of the entire episode is that I get a mail commitment with the date and time by which the payment will be done and every time the commitment is not met.

Zappo can you please guide on the procedure for involving IRDA and ombudsmen into this.

[amit.toshniwal]

Update on 8 Sep 2016 (62 days)

After a lot of follow up again now the balance payment from the salvage buyer was deposited into my account.

Update as on 10 Sep 2016 (64 days)

NOS letter scan shared and registered post send to Insurance company

Update on 23 Sep 2016 (77 days)

Finally after I wrote them that I will reach out to IRDA and also quoted the Consumer protection act asking for them to publish their SLAs or I will have to go legal did the final settlement amount get deposited into my account.

Phew finally one chapter closed and a lot of learning on how to handle Insurance company claims. I will be publishing the learnings in the next post on

1. How to submit and follow up claims
2. What are consumer rights and information that one can seek from Insurance company
3. IRDA regulations and ombudsman involvement requirements
4. Documentation required into the entire procedure

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by highway_star

they are charging around Rs 7,000 more for same IDV and similar terms. I was thinking about whether it is worth paying more for a Toyota branded policy. Now I have my answer.

They do charge more. There are couple of coverage that are not available with open-market policies :

1. Zero salvage cost
2. Option of "Return to Invoice"

I.e. in case of total loss, buyer gets original Ex Showroom + RTO + Octroi from Insurance (instead of a reduced IDV).