How our Claims Team work to go above and beyond

At COHIBL, you will often hear us talking with pride about our in-house Claims Team and the outstanding level of service and support that they provide to all our clients when it is needed the most.

With over 25 years of experience supporting clients, our ability in this key area has been proven time and time again.

We would like to share a recent example of a claim that demonstrates, not only our commitment to our clients to get the very best outcome for them, always, but also to demonstrate that our insurer partners can and do take a common-sense approach wherever possible.

Background

This particular case relates to a national car sales client of ours.  On 17^th July this year, they advised us that they had found out that a car that they had sold to a customer had been previously cloned.  In advance of the sales process they had carried out all of their usual checks, but nothing had been flagged.  Accordingly though, they had refunded their customer in full before reporting the matter to us.

The Claims Process

Our claims team set to work obtaining further information and documentary evidence, and on 19^th July they reported the claim to the insurers under the ‘Wrongful Conversion’ extension.

Wrongful Conversation cover is an extension to a motor trade combined insurance policy and is in place to insure against just this type of event.  As a motor trader, the protection is important to ensure that, should a vehicle turn out to be stolen, or cloned, the trader is not left out of pocket when the rightful owner either asks for the vehicle to be returned to them, or to be reimbursed for the value of the vehicle.

Unfortunately, despite our client having this extension in place on their policy, because the claim was being reported to insurers over six months since they had originally purchased the vehicle, a letter was received to explain that insurers were repudiating the claim.

They argued that the following condition was in place, meaning that they were not liable: –

Wrongful Conversion Condition

Provided always that:
d) notice of any claim or potential claim must be given as soon as you are aware and be received by us during the period of insurance when the motor vehicle was purchased by you or within six months of the purchase of the motor vehicle during the previous period of insurance.

So, I guess that’s the end of that?

Well, no.  And this is where having a broker with a dedicated claims team to fight your corner is invaluable.

Feeling that the decision from insurers was unfair, our Broking Director took the matter up with the Business Development Manager at the insurance company.  She argued that this condition wasn’t practical for a national car sales company such as our client, who have thousands of vehicles.

“They wouldn’t look to register a vehicle with the DVLA until the point of sale, as vehicles are covered as stock until this point. Our client can have vehicles for months before they even hit the forecourt, as they might need work to be undertaken. Once on the forecourt, it could be a couple of months until sale, so as you can see it can easily get to the six months point.”

Just under a month later, insurers contacted us indicating that they could see that our explanation made sense, and they were hopeful that an ex-gratia payment could be made in this instance.

Not only that, but they were also considering amending their policy wording to be more realistic, so that other companies would have a fairer chance of their claims being paid out too.  The matter was to be referred to the senior management team at the insurance company.

Just two days later, the insurers confirmed that the ex-gratia payment would be awarded, and a decision had been taken to amend the policy wording in relation to timescales.

Our team continued to push the process along and insurers finally processed a payment of £13,811.65 on 17^th September, representing 85% of the total loss as per the policy wording.

The COHIBL difference

We know how to get the very best results for our clients and, once again, our ethos of ‘we care’ is demonstrated in the way we handle the claims process.  Not only was this a fantastic result for our own client, but it also paved the way for similar companies, whether clients of ours or not, to receive a more realistic condition against their policy.

At COHIBL, from the point of notification, our expert team will always provide you with in-depth advice on how to achieve the very best result from the insurance company. Throughout the process we ensure that our clients are fully aware of developments and how the process is moving forward. You won’t be left in the dark and we will always fight to get you the very best and fairest result.