Car accident and insurance mgmt companies - scam??
Discussion
I don't know if I'm asking if it's a scam, or just wondering what people's thoughts are really.
Wife had a prang in the car a couple of days ago - scraped the side of the car down a bollard, which has dented the passenger side wing/sill/door. We put a claim in yesterday, all accepted and the insurance company have said we will be contacted directly by the bodyshop within 48 hours, courtesy car already booked, etc. All fine and we are happy with that.
This morning, I've had texts, calls and emails from a accident management company, who you could say were a limited company offering incident management solutions. Even though they knew the registration number of the car, and the proposed repairer, they sounded a bit scammy, so I rang my insurer and was told that they do not work with this company. I've since blocked them on email and phone/text.
So what's the deal? Do they (the chancers) expect me to ask them to handle the claim - even though it was nobody else's fault? How are they getting the details? Is there a database somewhere that is accessible to all?
Wife had a prang in the car a couple of days ago - scraped the side of the car down a bollard, which has dented the passenger side wing/sill/door. We put a claim in yesterday, all accepted and the insurance company have said we will be contacted directly by the bodyshop within 48 hours, courtesy car already booked, etc. All fine and we are happy with that.
This morning, I've had texts, calls and emails from a accident management company, who you could say were a limited company offering incident management solutions. Even though they knew the registration number of the car, and the proposed repairer, they sounded a bit scammy, so I rang my insurer and was told that they do not work with this company. I've since blocked them on email and phone/text.
So what's the deal? Do they (the chancers) expect me to ask them to handle the claim - even though it was nobody else's fault? How are they getting the details? Is there a database somewhere that is accessible to all?
When I had an accident a few years ago I was plagued by calls for about a year afterwards from companies who were inviting me to make a personal injury claim, telling me that I wasn't to blame (even though I was unambiguously at fault for the accident).
They had details of the day & time of the accident, my registration, and obviously my contact details including name, etc. The only way they could have gotten this information was from my insurance company passing (selling) on my details. After a while of these calls I phoned them and expressed how incandescent I was that "someone" had sold on my details. I remember the advisor at the time basically saying that they "didn't know how they could have gotten those details", and claiming innocence.
The calls dried up not long after that.
Long story short - the insurance industry seems to be like the Wild West. They're always looking to screw over each other and their own customers with inflated claims, chasing kickbacks from accident management companies, etc. It's amazing to me that it isn't more tightly regulated.
They had details of the day & time of the accident, my registration, and obviously my contact details including name, etc. The only way they could have gotten this information was from my insurance company passing (selling) on my details. After a while of these calls I phoned them and expressed how incandescent I was that "someone" had sold on my details. I remember the advisor at the time basically saying that they "didn't know how they could have gotten those details", and claiming innocence.
The calls dried up not long after that.
Long story short - the insurance industry seems to be like the Wild West. They're always looking to screw over each other and their own customers with inflated claims, chasing kickbacks from accident management companies, etc. It's amazing to me that it isn't more tightly regulated.
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