[sgautam31]

Hello BHPians,

Sharing my experience with Skoda service or rather say experience claiming the insurance for an accident damage.

The Car -

I own a Skoda Superb 2022, purchased it in July 2022 after a lot of research and confusion between the german trio and Superb. But, after a lot of deliberation and comparing pros and cons, we decided to bring home the Superb, the biggest reason behind it was the practicality over the 3-series, C-class (other options in consideration). It provides us a humongous boot space to hold all that we can carry, which would not have been possible with any other car in this segment, and also a good responsive engine with plenty of leg space in rear seats.

Will share my ownership experience separately.





Accident -

But as we all know, accidents can happen and it happened with us as well, when I accidentally hit the front bumper against a small barricade built in a petrol station to protect the air pressure machine in Nagpur, while coming from Himachal (home) to Hyderabad (second home). Mistakes happen and this mistake was a costly one, as it damaged the front bumper, along with the left side fog lamp, there were almost 5 small to large parts which required complete replacement.



My experience with service centers in Hyderabad -

The very next day after reaching Hyderabad, I took an appointment at the service center and took the car to PPS Skoda, Gachibowli for damage assessment. The service advisor showed little to no interest in getting my car serviced, I had to constantly follow up for part availability, when part was available he informed that they don’t have tie up with “United India Insurance Company” and would not be doing a cashless service, I will have to pay and get the insurance reimbursement by myself. I was not happy with this, the service advisor did not inform me about this for almost 2 weeks and when I asked them as per Skoda website, this company is one of the partner insurance companies and I should get the cashless facility, he became unresponsive.

I followed up with Mahavir Skoda (they never responded back to my service request) and Mody Skoda. I got the appointment with Mody Skoda immediately, they assessed the damage and advised that they will check on the insurance part as they also don’t have collaboration with “United India”. Later they also advised that the repair cost needs to be paid by me and claim the insurance, this wasn’t a very pleasant experience for me owning a Skoda.

Skoka India’s Intervention through Twitter -

Post these experiences, I decided to write to Skoda India and remind them of their promise of a cashless repair facility across pan India regions with this United India insurance cover, as it was also purchased from them directly. I took to twitter and to my surprise I received a call within 2 days from my tweet, they asked me where I would like to get my car repaired, and they will follow up with the service center. Since, Mody Skoda was most responsive and I had a good general service experience with them, I asked Skoda India to follow up with them.

Mody Skoda Team & Cashless Service -

Post Skoda intervention and escalation, Mody Skoda service center’s GM took this case in his own hands and worked with the insurance company to get the repair as cashless, though I really wish that they could have proactively tried to find the solution before, as this led to a lot of time wastage and an escalation. But in the end I was able to get the car repaired.



Conclusion -

In general, the experience could have been better as I had to follow up with multiple parties, including the insurance company. This could have been managed by the service center themselves rather than I had to reach out to Skoda India.

[Jangra]

Glad to know the issue is resolved. I’ve had bad experience with New India Assurance long back since then I moved to Bajaj Allianz and have had a seamless and cashless experience across all cars in the family - VW, SKODA, Maruti and Honda

[sam264_2000]

Glad to know your issue is resolved. I’ve the exact same damage made by a 2 wheeler driving on the wrong side and hitting my Celerio after the rider lost control of his Activa. I am yet to take it to MS ASS and I am hoping the claim process would be smoother since I purchase the insurance from the same dealer every year.

[Aviator_guy]

@sgautam31
All's well that ends well and glad to see your claim process worked out eventually.

I was wondering what did the Insurance company say to you about cashless process when you first submitted the claim. Generally when a claim is initiated, you'd come to know whether the garage is in network or not. Why did it take 2 weeks to get to know about cashless process? Were you in touch with insurance company during this period? Did they assign a surveryer? and what did they have to say about this?

[Safedriver2023]

I had an experience of Skoda dealer pushing for the tie up company to purchase a new insurance for the new car. The support after the purchase to update the ncb was pathetic. Till date I am unable to login to the reliance portal. Skoda thinks it is a premium segment and customer should be proud to own a skoda. They don't think about the customer experience when it comes to the technical part or support part. They think they are offering you the best. But they don't compare themselves with the support offered by Maruti or Toyota . This is why they are not able to grab the market with good cars. The actual company has realised its mistake but not the dealers. But the skoda customer service is like route to the requested dealer and forget it. They don't look if there is a big mail chain (my experience)
We are car enthusiasts and it is the reason Skoda has most of the sales. If these continue they may face the same fate of Fiat

[Omkar]

Must say, quite an experience you’ve had with claiming insurance. There are always issues with government-owned insurance companies like United India Insurance. But given that the policy was issued by the dealer itself, this should’ve been a seamless process at least for the customer.

In your case, I believe the service advisor just didn’t intimate the claim or didn’t follow up with the company to assign a surveyor. 2 weeks is a very long time to not have any update from the workshop or the insurance company.

There’s a massive difference in the approach taken by private insurance companies like ICICI Lombard General Insurance, HDFC general insurance, or Reliance general insurance and government-owned insurance companies like New India Insurance and United India Insurance. Private companies have a shorter TAT (turnaround time) for a claim while government insurance companies don't really care that much about timelines. In Mumbai, government insurance companies send third-party surveyors for claim surveys and at times the workshop has to regularly follow up with them for approval. Furthermore, the payments are also delayed which is why the workshops are also not too keen to service government insurance claims. Where the private insurance company's in-house surveyor will proactively follow up with the customer and workshop to get the car repaired quickly so that his targets are met, the third-party surveyor doesn’t care as much. Would suggest you switch to a private insurance company while renewing.

One of the ways to speed up the process is to intimate the claim yourself with the insurance company by calling the toll-free number on the policy. Then they will suggest which workshop to go to for cashless repairs. This works really well with private insurance companies because the moment you call and intimate the claim, their 14-day TAT starts.

[jaideepshinh]

The Nationalized/PSU insurance companies are usually a pain to deal with in my experience. In the few situations wherein we have started claims with United India Insurance we didn't end up getting any claim amount (the claim was not rejected, but it was not getting anywhere either and I did not have the time to follow it up), and the claim got logged as a result of which our NCB also disappeared.

Best experiences so far have been with Reliance and HDFC Ergo wherein claim processing time and surveyor interactions were very prompt.

[sgautam31]

Originally Posted by Aviator_guy

@sgautam31
All's well that ends well and glad to see your claim process worked out eventually.

I was wondering what did the Insurance company say to you about cashless process when you first submitted the claim. Generally when a claim is initiated, you'd come to know whether the garage is in network or not. Why did it take 2 weeks to get to know about cashless process? Were you in touch with insurance company during this period? Did they assign a surveryer? and what did they have to say about this?

My experience with the Insurance Company was very seamless, they had agreed to do a cashless settlement on my first call without asking any questions, the push was primarily from the service centers, as they did not have partnership with the "United India Insurance". I shared contact details and the process from the insurer with the service center/s, but they did not coordinate with them until Škoda India intervened.

Originally Posted by Omkar

Must say, quite an experience you’ve had with claiming insurance. There are always issues with government-owned insurance companies like United India Insurance. But given that the policy was issued by the dealer itself, this should’ve been a seamless process at least for the customer.

In your case, I believe the service advisor just didn’t intimate the claim or didn’t follow up with the company to assign a surveyor. 2 weeks is a very long time to not have any update from the workshop or the insurance company.

There’s a massive difference in the approach taken by private insurance companies like ICICI Lombard General Insurance, HDFC general insurance, or Reliance general insurance and government-owned insurance companies like New India Insurance and United India Insurance. Private companies have a shorter TAT (turnaround time) for a claim while government insurance companies don't really care that much about timelines. In Mumbai, government insurance companies send third-party surveyors for claim surveys and at times the workshop has to regularly follow up with them for approval. Furthermore, the payments are also delayed which is why the workshops are also not too keen to service government insurance claims. Where the private insurance company's in-house surveyor will proactively follow up with the customer and workshop to get the car repaired quickly so that his targets are met, the third-party surveyor doesn’t care as much. Would suggest you switch to a private insurance company while renewing.

One of the ways to speed up the process is to intimate the claim yourself with the insurance company by calling the toll-free number on the policy. Then they will suggest which workshop to go to for cashless repairs. This works really well with private insurance companies because the moment you call and intimate the claim, their 14-day TAT starts.

Originally Posted by jaideepshinh

The Nationalized/PSU insurance companies are usually a pain to deal with in my experience. In the few situations wherein we have started claims with United India Insurance we didn't end up getting any claim amount (the claim was not rejected, but it was not getting anywhere either and I did not have the time to follow it up), and the claim got logged as a result of which our NCB also disappeared.

Best experiences so far have been with Reliance and HDFC Ergo wherein claim processing time and surveyor interactions were very prompt.

Thanks Omkar and Jaideep.

In my case the delay was mostly from the dealer's side as they were showing little to no interest, perhaps past experiences dealing with the govt insurance. But once things were sorted it did not take more than 3 days to get everything fixed. I will consider moving to a private insurance while renewing, this was my first experience claiming an insurance, while driving for over a decade.

[GeeTee TSI]

Originally Posted by sgautam31

Mistakes happen and this mistake was a costly one, as it damaged the front bumper, along with the left side fog lamp, there were almost 5 small to large parts which required complete replacement.

I am curious to know the repair bill from the point of view of that weighed against the NCB discounts at stake if claiming insurance. Did this damage pop up any warning messages on the dashboard affecting normal driving in any way?

[raptor_diwan]

I'm glad that the issue has been resolved. It seems like the service center tried their luck to get direct cash and failed on it. Not everyone will resort to this method to find a solution; some may have to pay and work back with their insurance company. By the way, the car in the picture is stunning, especially the side profile picture.

[shyampsunder]

After paying overinflated insurance premiums while buying the car supposedly for the peace of mind of hassle-free claims, this is what customers have to deal with.

Every time I have gone with a dealer suggested 3rd party for the sake of convenience, I overpaid and had bad experiences even for trivial things like FastTag.

For insurance I have always stuck to HDFC Ergo or Acko, based on my experiences and reading the forum, don't see the need to change.

[vredesbyrd]

Glad that it worked out. Similar tussle here with VW Lucknow but at least they have a better response when asked about who provides cashless.

P.S. Gladder that you didn't go to Mahavir. They'd probably destroy rest of the bumper and say that you did it. You just dodged a train-sized bullet.

[ankitsharma]

Skoda ASS and issues go hand in hand. Insurance has the same fate with these cars particularly.
I recently renewed my car insurance and changed from RS -> ICICI Lombard. Now I am getting continuous messages to pay NCB recovery even when there was no claim in the previous policy.

For my other cars everything was seamless, specifically Maruti as they have their own Insurance desk.

You need to be Simply Clever to go around issues with Skoda.

Good to know that finally your issue was addressed.

[sgautam31]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

I am curious to know the repair bill from the point of view of that weighed against the NCB discounts at stake if claiming insurance. Did this damage pop up any warning messages on the dashboard affecting normal driving in any way?

The repair amount was around 88,500/-, of which 85,000/- was covered in insurance, there were no dashboard warning message as such. But the damage wasn't looking good and I wanted to get that fixed

[TheCarLover]

Skoda never fails to amaze me. They know to work only based on escalations.

Not sure if that is part of the customer training from Skoda as I see the same kind of service (or should I say inefficiency) across most of the dealerships.

I have my personal experience where I had to escalate and blast them in mail chains for me to get the headlight replaced under warranty