Car confirmed dead, cash expected

It’s been nearly a month since me and my car went exploring areas other than tarmac. Although I was a little bashed up, my car came off considerably worse, as the photos below show:

Since the accident, I had had no communication from my insurance company, so last week I called them. Finally got through to a young man who knew nothing but assured me that someone from the claims department would ring me back. They didn’t. So I went to their website and attempted to send a mail to the claims department. The mail bounced. So I attempted to send an e-mail to the customer services department. The mail bounced. So I attempted to fill in the “contact us” section of the website and received a bunch of HTML errors for my trouble.

So, I did what I always do in such situations, I wrote a note telling them of the quality of service I had (not) received, and advised them that I would be sharing this across the internet on every relevant forum I could find. I then faxed the note to every fax number in Thailand I could find for the company, plus a copy to their head office in Japan, just for fun.

This approach has worked before, most successfully for a medical claim for an operation to re-align my eyes which the insurance company suddenly decided was “cosmetic”; and with Air Asia who are famously uncontactable, until you start bad-mouthing them all over the internet about their failure to settle a claim for luggage being ripped to shreds; and then their head of customer relations becomes your new best friend.

The approach worked again, and within an hour of firing off the fax I had an apologetic man on the phone, followed an hour later by someone who told me he would be my contact throughout this claim and gave me phone numbers to call and e-mails to write to. But neither of them could tell me when/if my claim would be settled.

From the photos, it seemed clear to me that the car was not repairable. A conversation with the garage that had inspected it on behalf of the insurance company confirmed that it would require a total rebuild, with only the rear-view mirror being in a re-usable condition. But the insurance company would only state that they had to “complete standard procedures” before they could decide to repair or write off, and this would take time.

This morning there was a new voice on the phone who first assured me that staff had been briefed and action taken in response to my fax. “Have you had anyone killed for insubordination” I asked, hopefully? Apparently not. But they had finally agreed that my car was a write-off and that they would be preparing a cheque for the full amount insured.

Whizz. Now I need to decide on a new car. Ideas please.