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Understanding the Claims Process

Friday, 27 August 2010 16:46

One of the criteria for selecting a car insurance provider is a quick claim turnaround time for insurance claims. Taking sometimes up to weeks to process a claim and restore the vehicle to its pristine condition often undermines the value of a cheaper insurance premium or convenient policy management. Here’s why the process takes so long.

Step 1: The assessment
After an incident involving your vehicle, whether it be an accident or theft, an assessor working on behalf of your insurance company will have to evaluate the damage done to the vehicle, or verify the theft (by taking the car keys if the vehicle was not hijacked, and checking the police report). This can take a while depending on the number of qualified assessors available. You might even have to take your vehicle to the assessor if it can still function.

Step 2: Processing the quote
Once the assessment has been made and the total cost of the damage been determined, the insurance company will require up to three quotes from different panel beaters and secondhand parts suppliers (or car dealers to determine the cost of the vehicle stolen). How long this takes depends on the panel beaters or car dealers involved as well as the approval process in-house. Authorisation of this takes a while, which is why many insurers use pre-approved suppliers and third parties to provide low-cost parts. This speeds up the process.

Step 3: Obtaining the parts and labour
Once everything has been approved, the next step in the sometimes lengthy insurance claims process is the delivery of the parts. Before any parts can be delivered and approved, all the necessary paperwork (such as warrantees) must be checked and in order. Once the paperwork has been checked and is in order, the work can begin on the car. Depending on the panel beater, this can take a long time.

At each stage in the claims process, the insurer will require information and paperwork from the insured and the third party involved at that stage. For this reason, it’s often advisable to have a broker who can speed up the process by preemptively providing the insurer with all the required claims documents.

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Understanding the Claims Process

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