AAMI insurance

[-DAvo]

Ok so at the moment im in the middle of making a claim through my insurance company AAMI. Has been a mix of ups and downs.. thought id make a post here so others could either post their experiences of add some insight to the situation..

when first making the claim, AAMI really lived up to their name, very very helpful, quick response (no waiting on hold), and friendly staff.

upon making the claim..

20min wait on the phone to speak to operator, unfriendly/uninterested operator, vauge answers.. what is going on??

those of you who are insured with AAMI, how did you go with their "prefered repairer" as i went for the quote with AAMI's preferd repairer, and to be honest.. WHAT A TOOL! the guy didnt even chjeck to see if the reinforcing bar behind the bumper was bent (which it is), was rude, and generally kept a dirty shop...

when i took it to MY prefered panel beater, he immediately crawled under the car and saw the bar that was bent and was a lot more precise with his quote (sportivo bumper/skirting, took time to look at the replacement LED reflectors i have and said they would be retained in the new bumper)

my question is. what are my rights if AAMI (and i bet my bottom dollar they will) send me to the "prefered repairer" Can i sinmply say "No, over my dead body" to them?

am now questioning my choice of insurance company.. :S think ill go with a company that lets me choose repairer the next time....

anyway, please feel free to post your experiences..

/end rant

[DJKOR]

You always hear about conflicting stories on things like this. Personally I have had only good experiences with them, and same goes with my Dad and Sister (LOL, sounds like we are accident prone).

All the times I have dealt with them on the phone, I haven't had any unfriendly reps (though I guess if I did, there is only so much the company can control), and the only time I had a long wait was with my write-off with the Sportivo. This happened at the same time those wild storms were occurring so claims were being made left, right and centre.

On all my claims (first being when I was t-boned, second being the write-off, and third being when I was reversed into), I just lodged a simple claim with AAMI, answered the appropriate questions, followed their instructions, and they took care of everything for me.

For each claim, I simply dropped my car off at their assessment centre and that was it. They assessed the car, told me which repairer they have chosen, and then sent me a quote so I knew what was going on. They then gave me an expected completion date and a few days before, would give me a call to say if it looks to be running on time or if they need more. Their choice of repairer was enough to satisfy me and the job they did was beyond my expectation. Mind you, I didn't have any input into selecting the repairer, but it worked out in the end.

Hit or a miss I guess.

[lateralus]

aami cannot "force" you to get your vehicle repaired by their nominated repairer. although your policy conditions might state you have to, if you refuse to take it to their repairer they will cash settle you (pay you out) for the assessed cost of repairs.

at the end of the day, no insurance company can force you to do anything, but they might manipulate your claim otherwise

[Ozzcaddy]

I would contact your States Dept of Fair Trading and have them explain your consumer rights with regards to the repairer. It's the thing with any insurance comapny, they are really nice to you whilst you pay your fee's. However, when you make a claim they can be really helpful or the complete opposite. Just look at the problems Queensland residents are having with RACQ Insurance after the flooding.

[Kenshin X]

im with daryl. i've had no problems so far with aami. i think they were quite helpful and professional in their approach to my claim(s). in the end all my claims got done at my preferred repairer. who was in fact one of aami's preferred repairers as well. nice and clean shop and a rep to uphold i took my car back to them a couple of times to fix a little things here and there and they did it without having to get aami involved. even now there are a few things not 100% but hey, what is 100% these days?

[AJW]

If you also have issues with Insurance Companies sometimes the Insurance Ombudsman is a good way to go. They handle disputes between Insurance Companies and consumers. Its free to the consumer and my understanding is that even just the threat of going to the Ombudsman can help make Insurers be a little bit more flexible as it costs them as soon as anything goes to the Ombudsman usually making it cheaper to just resolve the issue themselves.

[Tash]

+1 to all of the above, I thought one of AAMI's selling points though was that they let you choose your own repairer. I don't think you will have trouble if you say to them exactly what you encountered and that you would prefer for the car to taken to your panel beater. When I was insured with AAMI I always found them to be very helpful and attentive, but I swapped back to RACV this year as I was not paying $100 a month to insure a Camry - how my excess went up when my Rating become 1 for life with no claims is beyond me.

Best of luck with it all Davo, please let us know how it goes :)

[Synthetic05]

Recently when i got hit in the rear, i went through insurance (Aami). At first over the phone they were nice and helpful and got things going for me. Ok i did take nearly 2 weeks to get quotes organised, because i wanted to go through a specific smash repairer and im pretty busy with work. Even though i had two quotes, Aami wanted me to get one from an Aami approved smash repairer.

Compared to the other two smash repairers, i was abit let down. They didnt seem to really care (probably because its a small job) and they didnt even take pictures of the damage? The other two took pictures of everything even the vin plate and rego sticker.

When i went to the assessment centre, their computer system was down ok fair enough. But it took them one week for them to tell me a quote was approved, which was me calling them up. They didnt even tell me. So anyway the car is booked in for monday and it better be a good job

[Steven]

Truck drove over the front of my car on the way to work. Had Police on site to take a report asap. Got witness details. Phoned AAMI as soon as I got to work with the report number handy so basically I did everything I could to ensure the matter was addressed as quickly as possible.

Girl on the phone taking my claim was quick, efficient and well-informed of the process. I booked in a time to drop it off at their assessment centre and received a free taxi ride home to be called later that day to be given an approx time for it to be fixed and ready.

Repair was handled by a mob I hadn't heard of before just around the corner from me as my preferred repairer was far too expensive (it's a mob that fixes all the exotic sportcars etc, so of course they'd be exxy). Having a bad experience with repair jobs on my previous car I went over everything with a fine tooth cone, even removing the bumper etc to check it. Essentially I found the work to be almost flawless and I'd actually go back to this repairer for my own personal jobs.

Also been running my mods past them recently, no worries at all no increase in premiums etc. Only thing I'm not fond of is the wait times on the telephone but I guess any company can have a busy day. All in all very happy with AAMI