How good is your insurance company when it comes to making a claim?

Bula Fiji

Some years ago we had a claim after a horse fell in our rain water tank. Comminsure were truly awful and five of us lived in that house for 5 months and 10 days without water as the tank was our only source of water. There was a policy benefit of alternate accommodation if your home was unliveable but it was at a rate equivalent to what your own home would rent for. Our house was declared unliveable and rental value assessed as $300 per week, but as the repairs were only supposed to take 3-4 weeks we could not sign a lease. Where do you get short term accommodation for $300/ week? We stayed home and lived without running water throughout winter. Plus, given they were not paying any alternative accommodation benefit there was no incentive for them to fix it in a timely fashion. We left comminsure, taking all of our mortgages and accounts from the commonwealth bank with us. One of the worst experiences of our lives - in retrospect we should have sued them.

Migaloo

NRMA WERE SO GOOD THEY SENT A TEXT TO MY PHONE LAST NIGHT STRAIGHT AFTER THE CYCLONE telling us to please stay safe and if we have been effected by the storm follow NRMA on face book for the latest up dates , to make a claim they even gave us the web site address to go to , that is a fantastic insurance company , to know they are out there right behind you when you are in trouble , to even contact you first before you contacted them , NRMA you are SO fantastic , AS IT IS WE NEVER NEEDED NRMA this time round as we were on the edge of the cyclone , small flooding around town .
NRMA also pay out the amount you paid to cover for when insured in loss not many actually do that either , and many you have to have receipts , how does one do that in a firer ,lucky we have never needed them but its great to know NRMA are out there and do care in situations like this for their customers .

Michael30240387

I made a claim about 20 years ago when I made a claim from storm damage. They where prompt assessing the damaged and it was replaced within 2 weeks of the storm
I was happy with the work carried out

Heide

We were involved in a motor vehicle crash on 3rd January 2017. This was definitely not our fault (the other party reversed out of a parking spot at high speed and we could not do anything to avoid it. We are still in dispute with our insurer AAMI, it is now over 2 months and are still NO closer to a resolution.

tRicci

I have my car insured with Allianz, I recently had a bingle with another vehicle, which I freely admit was my fault. Allianz got me going and resprayed and the other car repaired within 2 weeks of the accident. This was my 1st ever claim, they could not have been more helpful. I cannot sing their praises enough.

betty

years back we had hose and contents insurance with QBE , we were with them 5 years, our remote control on garage door broke and tried to make a claim plus done all what they told us and on the end they wanted remote control and did not want to pay for the claim, they said its their gadget end of the story, but we had;it for 10 years, how they can say they owned which they never boughted .the claim was only for $500.00 dollars ,on the end cancelled insurance and got new one.very hard to deal with them as long you pay premium its ok but to make claim, don't ask

angry mum

Had a burst pipe in the wall between the bathroom and the master bedroom. Had pipe fixed immediately and called insurance company immediately. There was water everywhere. All the walls were saturated and had to be removed in both the bedroom and bathroom and also the ceilings as the pipe had burst along the top of the walls leading down to the taps in the shower. Took insurance company a week to come and have a look. They arranged for the walls to be removed but did not cover them up with any plastic or anything else. A week later they sent in some fans to dry out what was remaining. They refused to replace the ceiling in the bedroom but did replace the ceiling in the bathroom. It was 6 months before the whole job was completed. I was constantly on the phone to them and a couple of months into the claim, they said the claim would going to be rejected as they said the shower caused the leak. I fought it out and in the end they did process the claim but only after I paid for some independent plumbers and builders to do up some reports as to the fact that the water and resultant damage did come from the busted pipe in the wall. Even the plumber who came out and fixed the pipe had to confirm to them that he had been urgently called out in the middle of the night to fix the pipe. It was the slowest claim ever and every time I called I had to speak to a different person and repeat the story over and over. Insurance company was APIA. Wouldn't recommend them.

KennethS

Had a burst pipe in the wall between the bathroom and the master bedroom. Had pipe fixed immediately and called insurance company immediately. There was water everywhere. All the walls were...

The purpose of insuring should be to have an honest claim fairly met. The Insurance Company with cheapest possible premium is not all that likely to give one the fairest or best possible deal on settling a claim. General Insurance risk is based round achieving a budgeted loss ratio, that is cost of claims as a percentage of premium income, and the lower the premium income due to discounting and low premium rates, the harder to achieve an acceptable loss ratio.

The sound way to select an Insurer is on their track record of settling claims, not on the cheapness of their premiums.
Remember the sour taste of inferior service last much longer than the euphoria of an apparent but false bargain.

chequers

All of my policies are with the NRMA, and I have only ever had to claim for car accidents. Usually all it ever takes is 1 phone call, and everything is done for me. My panel beater is not NRMA approved, because they want to offer a fixed price for all repairs, which he is not prepared to accept. That is, they will offer (for example) $7,000 for any repair he does, regardless of what it actually costs. It would put him ahead on some repairs, but behind on others. That being said, they still allow me to get my car repaired there, they just don't offer a lifetime guarantee on his repairs.

Migaloo

All of my policies are with the NRMA, and I have only ever had to claim for car accidents. Usually all it ever takes is 1 phone call, and everything is done for me. My panel beater is not NRMA...

Best insurance provider ever , they sent me a text last night with this cyclone weather , ever so good they contacted us first ,luck happens we never needed them , but great to know they do care and were right there .

chequers

I'm with the NRMA, and have been forever. So far I have only ever had to claim on my car insurance. It's very easy with them! A few years ago, I had a car that was an accident magnet. I'd take it in for repairs, pick it up on Friday, have an accident over the weekend, take it in on Monday, pick it up on Friday....etc. All I ever had to do was fill in 1 form. Now, I simply ring my smash repairer, arrange a day to take my car in, and that's it. I have to phone the NRMA to arrange a hire car while mine is off the road, but it's only 2 phone calls, and everything is sorted.

glenny18

I have only had two claims with RACV, one for the house and one for the car. The car was not as much my claim but through the other persons company, RACV just helped me and when I say helped me, did everything, they were fantastic, organised everything and then made sure everything was how I wanted it and that I was happy, did not effect my policy or rates, really made me happy to be with them and would highly recommend. The other was on the house and again they were just great, perfect you could say, again I didn't have to worry or do much it was all done for me again and once the repairs were completed checked to make sure all was ok, highly recommend again and well don e RACV, I will never change and have all insurances with them.

kaz007

I have had to claim a back fence that was blown over during a storm and also a washing machine that the motor burnt out on . I use Comminsure have found them very helpful and fast when making a claim .

Bigbear

NRMA sorted out my car accident insurance claim within the week, I am very happy and pleased with their service, it was my first ever claim and it was handled exceptionally. All my other insurance is with NRMA and I hopoe future claims will be appeased just as well.

Lilmel

I am with Allianz insurance and they are so amazing. I have never had bad experience with them. Highly recommend.

Iona

We had the misfortune of hitting a kangaroo in the middle of the night with my beautiful car. Youi were absolutely fantastic! The staff were very friendly, reassuring and helpful. They recommended a mechanic they had previously used who was near us but were totally happy for us to choose our own. There was no delay in communication or payments and our mechanic was very happy too!

Oldsalt

Apia is my house and contents insurer.
Recent power outage in Sydney
Meant. Contents of freezer fridge and seperate freezer had to be destroyed
Claim online. Cheque in bank in 48 hours

Old salt

ninna

I am with Comminsure & their response to any claim is quick compared to other insurers I have used over the years. My 1st claim was some years ago when a wind storm blew my laundry door shut & smashed the safety glass in it. I got a quote for $800 but the down side was that no one local could get to it for at least 3 weeks. I did not realise I had glass breakage & someone suggested I ask about it. So I rang them & they sent someone out that same day to repair it, paperwork was with the tradesman who repaired the door & I just paid my excess in the form of a cheque to him. 2nd time I claimed again after cyclonic winds blew my front fence over & they paid for a replacement fence of better material so it did not happen again. All within 3 weeks but held up for a couple of months due to a waiting list for someone to install the fence, lot of storm damage in the area so understandable. 3rd claim was I accidentally reversed over a bag full of cameras belonging to my son. It took longer to process because it was complicated by having to argue that you cannot successfully repair the damage to precision equipment but In the end they paid for replacement cameras.
I am so happy with Comminsure I now have my car, house & contents with them, my excess is $100 for anything i need to claim. They are also cheaper than any other quotes I have had from other insurers so I recommend them to anyone. I have had bad experiences with NRMA twice in the past so am very wary of how they all deal with claims. I had AAMI for my cars in the past & they were excellent on claims being very eager to get your car fixed & back on the road asap. I only left them because the Commonwealth bank beat their price & offered an agreed value on my car instead of the market value which was far too low.

Mp

I consider ourselves very lucky we had a gum tree from our neighbours crash into our yard plenty of damage fences, clothesline, partial guttering ,massive pots plants etc.
No power for almost 4 days!
NRMA so far has been great, very helpful I have only positive comments so far with our claim����

jatz50

My husband and I were coming home from an appointment at a hospital when we ran into a huge supercell storm. Stuck on the freeway with no way to go, we were hit head on by huge hail the size of tennis balls and extreme wind. Our new car of just over 2 years old was absolutely hammered. Driving home with the smashed windscreen was very hard for hubby.
We rang our Insurance Company RACQ straight away and because we could not drive the car to the assessors, they arranged for a tow truck company to come and collect the car. It took 2 weeks for RACQ to assess the car and we got the phone call......CAR WRITTEN OFF. They were great in putting the money into our account and we were able to go out and get another new car with not much problem.
Considering there were lots of cars that would have been damaged with that Super Cell storm, we were lucky in that ours was Written Off as it was dealt with rather quickly as we have to rely on one car to get around.

Bigfoot

Over the last 18 months I have had to make 2 claims, 1 was my fault but not the 2nd one. I am insured with REAL and because I have multiple insurances with them, I get a very good deal AND they processed my car claims without any trouble or delays. YEP, I recommend them.

shazzalee60

We use a broker but recently had a very large tree collapse in the backyard of our rental property! At first they were saying we were not covered but after some very good photo evidence and a bill of over $2500 (just to remove the tree and make good to the safety of the site) we may have had some joy! The tree- which was a poinciana and covered the whole back yard also had a two storey entertainment deck( with bylaw complying handrails) built independently around the tree! We used to live on the site and our kids had a long running relationship with the tree and the decks ( as did we all!) We are waiting to see whether they will approve the cost to rebuild the entertainment deck because if they consider it a CUBBY HOUSE we apparently have an uphill battle to have them pay. It was however very much an entertainment area so we will see how it pans out!! I will keep you guys informed!

amansonia

hi, really bad. dont give back what u have paid for.

angry mum

We had a very bad experience a couple of years back after a huge hail storm which left us with severe roof damage and broke the pergola roof. I had only been with the insurer for about since months as my previous one just got too expensive. The assessors came out and had a look and said they would replace the whirly bird on the roof and also the roof over the pergola. They said they would not replace our roof at all, nor fix any internal damage, such as painting etc. I took the case to the Ombudsman and after about 15 months, lost the case. I didn't find the Ombudsman helpful in any way. They don't take sides and kept refusing to take my calls. I had looked after my roof and had no problems before the hail storm. They put it down to a maintenance issue which is nonsense. How can an insurance company replace a whirly bird but not a roof. I was left with water marks everywhere inside the house on the ceiling and a roof which was lifted and stained eaves, all of which I had to fix myself. In the end I had no choice but to put a new roof at my cost. Needless to say I switched insurers. Sometimes cheaper is not always better. The insurer was Calliden through Manchester Unity which has been around for 130 years. Wouldn't recommend them at all.

angry mum

My son has just had the same sort of problem with Storm damage ( Roof,Walls,Carpet etc etc). His insurance first said yes it's covered but then it changed to No we aren't covering any of it . He...

Good luck with that. I found the Ombudsman not helpful at all. The whole claim was an absolute nightmare. Due to all the water which had made its way into ceilings and down the kitchen walls, we ended up with all this blue gunk coming out of the kitchen powerpoints. My electric frypan and deep fryer both blew. I had an independent electrician come and fix it and he said the blue gunk was due to water coming into the kitchen walls. I also told the insurer this and had my electrician back me up in writing to them about this but they still refused to do anything about it. In the end I had to rewire the whole kitchen which also wasn't cheap taking into account I had to pay for a new roof and all the interior damage to the ceilings. I had videos of the hail which was about 2 foot high all around the place and yet that still wasn't good enough. Tell your son that the Ombudsman takes his sweet time and wont take calls. Its a real waiting game and the only other thing to do is take the matter to Court which wouldnt be cheap either. I simply couldn't afford to take it to Court.

kaz007

We had a very bad experience a couple of years back after a huge hail storm which left us with severe roof damage and broke the pergola roof. I had only been with the insurer for about since...

My son has just had the same sort of problem with Storm damage ( Roof,Walls,Carpet etc etc). His insurance first said yes it's covered but then it changed to No we aren't covering any of it . He has now put in a complaint to the Ombudsman . He is with a different Insurance company then yours . Very disappointed in the Insurance company .

marcia1945

We had a very bad experience a couple of years back after a huge hail storm which left us with severe roof damage and broke the pergola roof. I had only been with the insurer for about since...

We had a bad experience about 18mths ago, we had just got back from holidays and a couple of days later was Sunday I had just gone to Church when my phone rang and my husband who was in bed sick at the time said the tree from next door had fallen on our house, it was a huge gumtree, dreadful windy day. We were insured with Real and had to claim it on our insurance,they were wonderful they replaced the roof the side of the house that was all smashed in, they were wonderful but the hard part was our next insurance renewal went up about $1,500.00 we were not happy as it wasn't our fault but that's how it goes. Needless to say we had to insure with someone else as we couldn't afford it. But hey no one was hurt so "Thank God" for that

Rose

We had some flooding after a storm event about 3 years ago. Damaged carpet curtains and furniture. nRMA was our insurer and everything was sorted out quickly and we were very satisfied with the handling of it and the outcome.

sweetsunshine

Luckily for me I have not yet had to make any claims. Actually I don't even have contents insurance ( I'm renting) something I need to get on to pronto!

Maggie24

Recently had to make a claim with NRMA after my car was written off. No issues at all the assessor rang me the day after the accident to tell me it was written off and i had the money in my account with in a few days. They were great. We had a few issues getting a tow truck to the scene of the accident - we were on the M1 north of Sydney but that is a whole other story. Insurance claim ran like clockwork - couldn't be happier.

Lynstar59

I was caught up in the storms of November last year in Qld. Annerley where I live was the hardest hit suburb. The destruction was immense with every house in my steet losing all their south facing windows, Cars were damaged with mine being one of them and there were plenty of trees through windows & roofs off. I dealt with APIA for my car claim & I found them to be efficient and caring with a taxi home provided when I dropped car for assessment. The process of getting windows,roofs etc fixed is still ongoing but almost complete. No one can do miracles.

XL

Allianz were great initialy but the work took a long time to be completed. We were flooded a few years back in our underground cellar and the process seemed to go smoothly until actual repairs began which dragged on.

In our most recent claim for glass breakage, GIO was amazing, from the call it only took 3 days to have processed claim and trademan replacing windows. It was quite a specific glass and large replacement and I was more than impressed with their professionalism

Jojo1

I have just changed to a new insusrances company so have not had a claim.

jjdrer

I haven't personally but a friend of mine's car was hit from behind, spun around several times, went through a rural wire fence and rolled over a few times defore coming to rest on the car's room. The driver was very drunk and travelling at least 40kph over the speed limit. My friend's car was a complete write-off . Her insurance had paid her claim and has to recover the money from the drunk driver. He didn't only hit that car he side swiped another one first only a few seconds before.
12 months ago, other friends of ours got property(not house or sheds) damage on a rural property, destroying large strips of fencing (some of it was new) pasture, native bushland and ash in their drinking water. They are totally reliant on rain water tanks. Their insurance company was very good. They even asked if there was any animals on the property. Had there been any they would have sent vets up there to treat or euthenaise any animals they knew would not make a quick recovery.

bulldogproud

I recently had to take time off from work due to severe anxiety/depression. I utilised my Income Protection Insurance within my superannuation (CCES/NGS Super). The dealings were through Mercer Insurance. Although they took a fair while to assess the claim, all dealings with them were easy and personable.

Vivace

I am so lucky living in Brisbane that I live in a high spot residentially and haven't had any claims on my house or contents at all. As for my car, some lovely children ran into the front of it and right up the side of it racing on the Big 4's go carts at Tweed Heads a couple of years ago. RACQ were brilliant, even when no other parents would take responsibility for what their children did to my car. Personally I won't use an insurance company that's on-line only. I need an office that I know I can go to if things go pear shaped.

wooly

We've been with AAMI for some time for car insurance. We've had, unfortunately, several claims in the last several years. Most were handled quickly. The last accident happened out of the Sydney area and became a bit drawn out and messy. We were shifted to different claim branches and didn't find them so proactive. I'm still not sure it was completely handled correctly as we had some out of pocket expenses that were never reimbursed but it was too complicated to figure out how to address that given the shift of branches that occurred. We also got involved with a less than honest mechanic shop during the process which did not help matters.

coversharvey

APIA have been very good with loss of purse by theft.

socker

It is about 40 years since I claimed for a burnt out motor on my washing machine and had no problem that time being offered a replacement electric motor.

This time the ceramic top of my stove shattered one night for no apparent reason. Glass every where. We cannot live without something to cook on so went out and bought a new one the next day. Then decided we might be able to claim on home and contents insurance.

To make a claim we were told to fax a copy of the receipt and model number (we didn't have the model number) to their office which we did. About two days later we were asked for a photo of the damaged stove top. We were lucky that the rubbish truck had not been so dug the stove out the rubbish bin, took the picture and emailed it to them. That was 8 days ago and have heard nothing since.

angry mum

It is about 40 years since I claimed for a burnt out motor on my washing machine and had no problem that time being offered a replacement electric motor.

This time the ceramic top of my...

good luck with that but I don't think they generally cover glass for a stovetop or oven door.

jules 1

It is about 40 years since I claimed for a burnt out motor on my washing machine and had no problem that time being offered a replacement electric motor.

This time the ceramic top of my...

Good luck with your claim.!

gobbytart

I saw an offer for National Seniors so got my home contents with them. It turned out that the underwriters are the Hollard group and then the actual company was Real insurance. I damaged my TV and needed a new one. My policy was a" new for old" policy. My Tv had cost me over $ 4000. It had been top of the range at the time
but it was a few years old. It also had an integral stand and shelves to hold dvd players etc.
Real advertise only phone calls are necessary.
I was offered a very bottom of the range TV that cost about $200 it did not have anywhere near the same features.
After a few non-productive phonecalls, I wanted things in writing so I reverted to e-mails.. I had quotes from various places. I wanted a TV if not of the same financial cost, to have a mid to top of the range replacement.
They were adamant.I only had a 32 inch TV so that was all they were going to give me.
New for old??? they were only giving me "like for like" and then not even that.
This was going on for over 6 months. I contacted the Financial ombudsman.
After about a year I was finally offered about $1000 back. I would have not got Check your policy
Check what is meant by the terminology
Don't use Real

Cheran

I must say I'm relieved we've survived the last few days unscathed. Haven't had an insurance claim in over 20 years so we're feeling very lucky. Good luck to all who need to deal with insurance companies now. Hope they are gentle and diligent.

Auzins

I have most of my insurances with RAC, being three cars, a caravan, a boat and a rental property. They have always been extremely helpful, polite and efficient. The only claims I have had with them related to my motor vehicle (several including a write-off) and all have been resolved very satisfactorily. Our residential property is insured with Apia and again, they have also been very efficient and helpful with all claims (three glass claims)

lmewburn

We accidentally flooded the back bathroom and had to make a claim on our insurance through YOUI and I can only say what a great company to deal with they had people at the house to lift and dry the carpets within an hour and kept contacting us all through the day to make sure we were happy with proceedings. They had the house back to normal within a week including replacing the water effected skirting boards and repainting water damaged areas. Would not hesitate to recommend YOUI from our experience.

Tracyb

We have had to make 2 claims with SGIC. The first was because of a burglary. SGIC were very helpful and supportive. The 2nd was a minor car accident. I reported the incident immediately but didn't hear from SGIC so after 6 weeks I rang again. I think that something must have been overlooked the first time as the claim was then accepted and the repairs done quickly. So overall I would recommend SGIC.