Have you ever made/had an insurance claim?

LirW · 07-12-2017 5:32pm #1

Was thinking about insurance claims here a bit lately. Moved in our house recently and have this decking in the front that's ridiculously slippery and I wanna remove it next year, also because if someone would slip I might get in serious trouble.

But have the people here on boards ever had a claim against them or made one?
Tell your insurance anecdotes!

LirW · 07-12-2017 5:39pm

Also to contribute myself: Back home I was involved in two minor car accidents, in both cases it was the other parties fault. In the first case, I didn't claim because there wasn't anything wrong with the car beside a few surface scratches.

In the second case a lady hit my rear with her car and it couldn't drive anymore. It all was sorted out via insurance. The way it worked was I brought it to my mechanic, who was certified, they did a report and the repairs, sent the bill in to the other party's insurance and they paid my mechanic directly. Not much trouble going on.

When I moved here and was pregnant with my daughter a year later, I was like 5 weeks away from my due date and was walking back to my car from the post office. The road was in sh1te and there were plenty of potholes. I tripped over one of the pothole edges and sprained my ankle. I felt like a horse that needed to be put down and couldn't walk for a week. I jokingly said back then "Ah yeah I should sue the council".
Today I know if I would have done that I probably would have won, which is pretty ridiculous.

cantdecide · 07-12-2017 5:43pm

I had to claim against the tractor driver that nearly decapitated me due to failing to secure his equipment and causing an accident. I claimed for my motorbike (written off), helmet and gear, medical fees, loss of earnings for a few days etc.

Because it was such a serious near miss, they did some generous 'rounding up' by way of covering some pain and suffering (although I could have been much more seriously injured) after I made it clear all I wanted was my material losses covered. I can't speak more highly of FBD consequently. The whole thing was boxed off in less than a month.

Your Face · 07-12-2017 5:46pm

The depths insurance companies will go to mine information...

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 07-12-2017 5:54pm

Nope thank god never needed to

pilly · 07-12-2017 6:14pm

I've been fairly lucky in live really. I've only ever had 2 incidents with insurance.

Once an elderly woman came over a hill at huge speed and ploughed into the back of me, she was most apologetic and admitted fault straight away. I did go to the hospital but nothing broken, just bruised rips from the seat belt, swollen hand, swollen ankle. Never occurred to me to make a personal injuries claim because I believe in Karma.

Second time, it was me that hit someone from behind, totally my fault, I was trying to change destination on the sat nav, I hopped out, sick to the stomach because there was a child in the back of the car. Thankfully child was fine and the couple didn't seem the claiming type so I just gave them all my details. My own insurance company rang next day, I admitted liability, filled in a form, it was settled in a couple of weeks. 1200 euro.

So maybe Karma is a thing.

Rubberchikken · 07-12-2017 6:16pm

No. Never.

cantdecide · 07-12-2017 6:31pm

I had another claim on travel insurance after a serious road accident in the third world back in 2012. I was an incredibly serious position and I was badly hurt. I was also after running out of money and was too injured to travel. I was supposed to return to New Zealand but instead had to come home to recover from my injuries. I needed surgery and repatriation. It took 2 weeks to get to safety with a broken collar bone, ribs and a shattered shoulder blade.

I had to chase the insurance company (insurance bought in Ireland but claims handled in Spain) every day and despite this being the literal exact textbook type of situation you have insurance for, they would keep explaining how their underwriters had come up with some obscure loophole as to why they didn't actually have to help. Using their own small print, I had to point out their scurrilous behaviour while being in a desperate physical and emotional state and after much frustration and anger, common sense prevailed and they covered everything. There were two halves to my ordeal - dealing with the crash and dealing with the insurance. My family were in the process of having a whip round to try and help where the insurance company were doing everything possible to wriggle out of their obvious duty.

Sue Pa Key Pa · 07-12-2017 6:32pm

Good news insurance stories shocker. Close it down,.......

Edit; Normality restored, phew

suicide_circus · 07-12-2017 6:34pm

Only vhi

07-12-2017 6:35pm

A cab driver mounted the pavement and drove over my foot in England. He did it outside a solicitors office that had a large plate-glass window, and the solicitor herself saw it all.

His insurance paid up pretty quickly but I was on crutches for ages and lived two flights up.

I've had a couple of other claims too.

LirW · 07-12-2017 6:42pm

Actually I had a very unpleasant dealing with Laya a while ago.

My son needs a minor medical procedure, I went to the GP for a referral, told him about the insurance I have and he sent out the referral. The thing was that the Referral was sent to the doctor in the Mater Private. When I got onto Laya they told me, they wouldn't actually pay for the procedure because my son isn't covered for that particular hospital. Well then, I had to cancel the appointment. The consultant would have been in a few other hospitals. But getting onto Laya they made it nearly impossible for me to claim for something so minor, so I decided to put him on the public waiting list (it's not urgent).

A few week after that I had to renew my policy with them and they wanted to charge me 30% more for literally nothing. Needless to say that Laya and I go seperate ways now.

I've also seen a documentary a while ago that plenty of people claim for broken electronics in Germany before Christmas and they actually send people home to you if they have any doubts if your claim is actually true (because a lot of them weren't). Was quite interesting.

_Brian · 07-12-2017 6:44pm

Had a bad accident in 2009. Life changing injuries. Claim took a long time to settle and I hated the whole process.
Had to change my line of work as was unable to continue.

Then there the lads looking at you winking saying “back and neck injury, surely”, not everyone is pulling a stroke.

Noveight · 07-12-2017 6:56pm

I've neither made a claim nor had one made against me, thankfully. Long may it continue!

Berserker · 07-12-2017 6:59pm

Only one claim thankfully. Was living beside a certain river in Dublin which flooded one night and my car, along with countless others, was written off. Claim was processed very quickly, within one week, which was great.

hairyslug · 07-12-2017 7:06pm

We had pipes burst in our house when we had that really bad winter about 7 years ago, there had been a mix up between a guy who was renting our house and he had left that week.

Assessor came out and checked everything, stuff we hadn't thought of and found a lot more damage that what we could see, it helped that my wife was 8 months pregnant.

Also had to make a claim when someone through a bottle through our sitting room window (Arklow really is a kip).

About 20 years ago, we were rear-ended by a Dublin bus tow truck, we made a claim for the damage, think it was an Austin Allegro in orange.

07-12-2017 8:01pm

Only phone insurance. I had two stolen within the space of a few months.

First claim took a while to pay but second went through a lot quicker. (When I say pay, I mean provide a replacement phone)

Have you ever made/had an insurance claim?

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