Re: Automobile Insurance Queries? Ask me Posting on behalf of one of my colleague who is having a harrowing experience dealing with a claim with DIGIT.
Team BHP,
I would like to share an incident recently happened with me. I am working as a Sr. Manager in an MNC. Responsibilities recently magnified as I was progressed to the next role. I worked stretched shift on Friday (16th Nov) overlapping with Saturday (17th Nov) to cope up with my next level duties. While coming back, via my HONDA CIVIC, to my home (Paschim Vihar) that day, I met with an accident opposite to Peera Garhi CNG station. Four to five guys in a MARUTI SWIFT car suddenly took an illegitimate U-turn, bringing their car abrubtly in front of me, in a perpendicular fashion, leaving no chance for me to react or avoid the accident, and then BANG! - this all resulted into a horrific crash. I was saved sheer because I was wearing seatbelt and the air bags also inflated to minimize the impact. This incident happened close to my home so I immediately called up my parents. As soon as my parents came, I did a call to 100 to report the incidence. Meanwhile, the culprit guys tried to escape through the car via wrong side, but couldn't, because their car rear right wheel got jammed due to the accident. They couldn't get far enough, not more than 100 meters because of their stuck rear right wheel. They were absolutely drunk so they all decided to run away leaving their car, to avoid medical examination & it's consequences. One of that guy came once in the interim, trying to compensate the situation, to which I didn't utter a word, to avoid making situation more worse. He ended up obnoxiously talking to me because of the same reason, and since I was alone, tried to overpower me, because my parents and police were not there yet. Sigh of relief that my parents appeared and then I reached out to them to have a talk with that culprit guy. He started walking away saying that I don't want to talk but suddenly the spectators or bystanders had too much to digest so they all started beating up that guy to extremes of tearing his clothes. I still had a stance to save him from extended beating. Culprit guy was constantly reciting that today is my birthday, being totally out of his senses, and was expecting a special treatment. At last he also sneaked away as his other partners. To conclude the situation, my father advised me to retract the police complaint, being AAM AADMI, to avoid any schedule fluctuations in my professional career, and most importantly with me being intact. All ended up with a hope that the loss will be settled through the insurance claim so 'relax'. However, this resulted in a nightmare because of the unprofessional and biased response from DiGiT insurance team, as explained in detail, with specifics as follows:
KEY INFO:
CLAIM # - 201800015141
Insurer - DIGIT
Policy # - D001694137
Policy issue dt - 6th October'18
IDV - 374751 INR
DIGIT surveyor - Mr Hemant Kumar (Hemant.Kumar@godigit.com)
External surveyor - Mr Mukesh Mendiratta (mukeshmendiratta34@gmail.com)
Total repair expense assessment from authorized HONDA workshop - 840717 INR
HONDA expense sheet - enclosed
Total repair expense assessment submitted by external surveyor - 463869 INR
Insurer liability (after applying the depreciation) - 248921 INR
Insurer expense sheet - enclosed
As per consideration from HONDA estimate = 8.4 lacs, even if we account for maximum depreciation of 50% to compute insurer liability, it comes out to be = 4.2 lacs, that is truely well over 75% of IDV (281,063) i.e. 4.2 lacs > 2.8 lacs, thus a sheer case of CONSTRUCTIVE TOTAL LOSS(CTL).
However, forceful attempt being made by the insurer to understate the insurer liability, as per the expense report submitted by them = 2.48 lacs (after depreciation), less than 75% of IDV (281,063) i.e. 2.48 < 2.8, to avoid CONSTRUCTIVE TOTAL LOSS scenario.
CONSTRUCTIVE TOTAL LOSS situation here is evident because of following reasons:
1. Estimation at authorized HONDA workshop must have done with due diligence, leveraging their expertise capabilities, to compute the repair estimate, with min/max estimate variance of 10%. However, the difference between HONDA authorized workshop assessment of 8.4 lacs, as compared with surveyor repair estimate of 4.6 lacs is more than 40%, that is questioning the integrity of the surveyor guesstimate.
2. Considering the fact, ultimately, HONDA authorised workshop is the one where the car has to be repaired, not under surveyor capabilities, so HONDA authorised workshop assessment should be deemed final.
3. Based on surveyor estimation approach, their repair guesstimate is based on actual damages, that are just visible upfront from naked eye, however the car is not in working condition, not taking ignition at all, plus the clutch is totally free, which has not taken into consideration so far. Thus, the damages are tend to increase as the car will go through the complete scanning process, that would only be possible once the car is operational. This would certainly lead to increase the repair cost.
4. In nutshell, all of the expenses have been evaluated based on the existing visual damages of the car, just reviewing the damages at the surface level. However, more deeper diagnostic would be done once the car is dismantled for repair, to reveal more intricate damages, and that's going to potentially increase the repair evaluation.
Kindly advise on how to resolve this situation, and what next steps to be considered.
Furthermore, if its not CTL, and we would not want to go for repairs since the repair cost is significant, so what would be the other option(s) available with us for the claim settlement. |