Car Insurance Nightmare

[thaimat]

Here's a sad story about an insurance company whose attitude about customers needs to be told here. We recently insured our Chevrolet truck with LMG Insurance, who gave us a good rate, but told us we couldn't use Chevrolet if we had an accident. We did not think we would ever be in that situation (foolish us).

We later had an accident with our 3 year old Colorado truck involving a sizable pothole, extensive body damage, a few hours away from the other side of Bangkok. Called LMG insurance, asking that our truck taken to one of "their" garages in Pattaya, closer to our home. LMG informed us that they needed a "big garage" with a transport trailer, and the appropriate facilities for fixing our truck. So the truck was taken to Chonburi. Three weeks later, the LMG Insurance's representative is telling us that they were still working on figuring out what needed fixing!

We thought this a bit fishy, so decided to go to the garage (unannounced) and see for ourselves. We found the garage, expecting a shop with the kind of equipment we were used to seeing at Chevrolet and any mechanic shop set up for serious work, such as hoists, pits, etc. Instead, we were at a small warehouse, with approximately 15 mainly much older cars tightly packed in, being worked on by men with only hand tools. There were no frame pullers, alignment stations, lifts, hoists, mechanic pits for getting under cars, none of the large equipment we were used to seeing at Chevrolet. It looked like your average body shop for scratches and minor fender benders, found anywhere in Thailand. Our truck was out back in what looked like the car graveyard, and it was sadly apparent that nothing had been removed in order to examine the extent of the damage since it was brought there three weeks ago. The big boss of the garage, and another man, came hustling over to us, and started talking about how complicated the repairs were, blah blah blah. When we started taking pictures of out truck, they became visibly "excited", and both men started talking very fast about how it takes time to decide what to do. They finally admitted to the madame that LMG Insurance simply would not spend the money necessary to fix the truck. The madame was not happy with this new story, asking why they hadn't simply informed us of this many weeks before. We were told that this was not the garage's fault, it was LMG Insurance Company's decision.

We contacted Da, the Insurance broker at AA Insurance Pattaya, letting her know how upset we were that LMG Insurance had done nothing regarding repairing the truck, other than feed us untrue stories about the delays, for more than 3 weeks. (This lady had been, and continues to be, very helpful. Da is very good at her job, has always done what she said she would in a very timely fashion, stays in touch with us, an agent we will use for our future insurance needs.) We received a call from LMG Insurance, telling us the same things-complicated repairs/complicated decisions, blah blah blah. Then we get a call from the garage boss, asking us if we wanted him to fix our truck. What a question, this was becoming surreal!

It's now been more than a month, and as far as we can tell, nothing has been done still, other than LMG's Chonburi boss telling us that he is waiting to talk to the man in charge of money. Apparently we the customer are not a high enough priority for that discussion to happen in anything close to a reasonable amount of time! LMG has not committed anything in any way to us as to how or when they will resolve this claim. We suspect that LMG Insurance may have a policy of dragging it's behind as a standard procedure when they have to spend real money on a repair or when the repair is beyond what their garages' can handle. But we could be wrong, since their almost total lack of communication, other than giving us excuses that seem to us quite feeble, only allows for conjecture on our part. We asked if they have a serious money problem, such as a lack of, but have received no answer to that question either.

Our next step is the madame is going to see Grom Gan Prakan Phai today, the government agency that oversees the insurance companies here, to find out if there are many such complaints about LMG, and to discuss what our options are.

Anyone else here have problem LMG stories like this? If so, do tell, and if you wish, we will relay them to Grom Gan Prakan Phai. LMG Insurance Company's claim resolution service has been terrible to non-existent, and we want to help make sure that it is not allowed to continue to treat customers so badly.

[stingray]

This is a common problem in LOS. We have a rental car business and sometime the customer don't understant why we take 10'000 Baht deposit for a normal small car and 20'000 Deposit for a larger car. Yes our cars are fully insured, but in case of a accident it takes time to repair the car, because insurances have a long cue until our car get fixed and the "clear out" take time as well. Therefore the deposit money, because the Finance or the Bank don't care if the car stay in some warehouse after a accident and we can rent the car or not, they want their payments every month.

There is another thing as well (must see the contract). Sometime insurances not pay anything if the driver go into a pothole ar a tree for example. Sometime they pay only if another partie or car get involvet in the accident. I undertand this situation a little bit, as for example "Somchai" could hit a tree or a wall for purposes to get a free new paintwork or hitting a potwhole to get new free suspsnsion parts. Of corse i not say you done that for purposes, but it could happen with some locals maybe.

Edited March 3, 2010 by stingray

[thaimat]

Here's the latest on the LMG situation: After posting the story here, and writing an email to Liberty Mutual in America, the parent corporation of LMG, we received a call from a very nice lady from LMG Bangkok.She read the story here, (and received a communication from Liberty Mutual in America), and told us that this was the first she had heard of our claim. She said she had received no word of this from LMG Chonburi, the regional office handling this claim. (The Chonburi claims manager has only called us once, in the three months this has taken). This very nice lady was extremely polite and friendly, and cut through as much of the red tape as was possible. She had very good dynamic thinking skills, rare here to say the least. Lmg has now settled our truck claim, and had we not posted the story here, and written to Liberty Mutual America, I have little doubt it would still be an ongoing nightmare. The lesson for us is, try to do business, as much as possible, with companies that are owned by larger foreign companies. Corporations in other countries seem to have a greater sense of what good customer service is, than what we have experienced from Thai companies. This way, if you don't get quality customer service from the Thai branch of the company, communicate with the parent corporation.

Edited March 15, 2010 by thaimat

[aussiebebe]

I can partially sympathize with the OP regarding the 'customer care' offered by insurance companies. I'd insured my Toyota with Thai Insurance before it was stolen and it took six full months to resolve. I phoned numerous times and visited once and felt I was being marginalised/ignored. I see similarities between the situations because the OP was told how 'busy' the companies are, as was I.

Regarding the choice of insurance companies, I find it strange you chose LMG, even when they said they wouldn't fix the truck at Chevy, why did you think that would be acceptable? Chevy offer complimentary comprehensive insurance with AXA, so to insure your 3 year old truck you'd have two years no-claims bonus. If LMG were cheaper than renewing your AXA policy with 2 years NCB, that should have been your first warning.

[blacknight]

I have a very similar story to tell about Ayudhya insurance company. I bought my brand new top model Jazz from Pattaya Honda and decided to take their fully comprehensive insurance policy even although it was vastly overpriced at 23,000 baht.

My reasoning behind this was if I had any problems whether my fault or not they would give me support and help in dealing with said problems. How wrong I was.

My g/f was driving to the market at about 7pm one night and a young Thai guy had a head on collision with her on a four laned 40kph zoned road. He was pissed out of his brains and had no helemet and sadly died from his injuries.

I was out of the country when this took place but was re-assured when the local insurance rep turned up at the scene and arranged for the car to be taken away. My sense of relief was short lived however when my g/f had to pay to have the car taken away and also for storage at a cost of 4000 baht. When I called she then explained that my 2 month old Honda would not be repair by Honda but by some other Somchia owned panel beaters.

I lost the plot and told her to demand it went to Honda which she did the following day. To cut a long story short the car then went to Honda's Rayong branch to be repaired where it remain relatively untouched for some 10 weeks while the insurance company squirmed about paying the bill. Finally I drove down to Rayong and the Thai manageress in the body shop told me a load of bulshit about parts availabilty and paint drying time and the car should be ready some time in the New Year, some 4 months after the accident.

I know you should alway keep your cool in Thailand but I was at the end of my tether so I went to see the branch manager at the showroom along the road and gave it to him staright. I told him I would be contacting head office to get a speedy response to my complaint. He then laughed when I asked for contact details and said the Big Boss in BKK was really busy and he doubted he would even read my mail.

I countered by telling him I meant head office in Japan and watched the blood drain from him smiling face as I metioned the fact I had bought 4 or 5 new Hondas in Europe in the past and they would have my details on file.

He called my g/f the next day and said my wrecked car would be repair withing 7 days, which it was. I am however still waiting on my 4000 baht for towage and 8000 baht hospital bill and that was from an accident in August 2009.

I will now only deal with Farrang companies regardless of the premium as at least I can vent my frustration when the shit hits the fan. Also a few thousand baht saved in premium costs is not alway the best option.