Please read https://mouthshut.com/review/National_Insurance_Comp-154758-1.html for the initial part of this review(split due to word limitations)
The surveyor, Mr. Avnish Kumar said that the insurance company would rather give me a replacement vehicle of the same model and make rather than giving the total loss. This was very surprising to me.
A consent letter has been provided to me for signing for the mutual agreement and I am being asked to sign it to make the things move forward even when there has been no mutual agreement.
I had decided that purely in the interest of time I will settle for a little less and make sure that the claim is close to the earliest as it had already been 4 months since the claim was filed. The insurance company told me that they would put a value to the damaged card and send a buyer for that. However when the buyer came he told me that a part(ecm?) was missing from the vehicle and hence he would not pay for that. I think that the insurance policy is still active and any theft should also be covered. The vehicle was at the accident site for more than 4 hours before being towed away by the crane. Then it was in PASCO automobiles for over 40 days. I believe that the part could have been missed either at the accident site or during the parking stay in PASCO hence I would not be the right person to be made accountable for that.
On talking to the insurance company(Mr Gandhi, +91-9810228421), he advised me the following. He said that the missing part(ecm?) has a current market value of Rs 12000. However the buyer of the scrap car will reduce the buy amount by Rs 5000 and NOT the deprecated value of the part. As per my understanding the value that should be deducted from the claim is the deprecated value of the part, after 6 years of deprecation and not the new value. The same was explained to me by Mr. Sudhir Pal, from NATMAR INSURANCE.
Also, one aspect which was very disturbing was that after talking to me for over 4 months about the claim, Mr. Gandhi from the insurance company told that their office has nothing to do with the claim and I should be contacting the Gurgaon office. I am really saddened by this apathy shown in settling the claim.
*Latest conversation with insurance company representative
The latest stand that the insurance company has taken is that the IDV that is written in my policy document and for which the premium was charged is HIGHER than the market value of the car! They say that the IDV should have been less. This is really absurd as I have already been charged the premium for that and the insurance company is liable to pay the value as agreed between us on the policy document.
This has also made me believe that I have been taking the services of the National Insurance Company since the last 6 years, I am sure that I must have been overcharged in the premium. I would like to open up the policy document of the previous 5 years as well to ensure that I have not been fleeced by the Insurance company by providing me a bogus IDV and charging a higher premium.
*Complaint Summary
*I would like a redressal of the following
1. An immediate settlement of my accident case as a comprehensive total loss with the settlement amount equal to the IDV for which the premium was charged from me and which has been pending for more than 5 months now.
2. Claim for the missing part as covered under theft in my already active insurance policy.
3. Proceedings against the insurance company to open up the policy document for the previous 5 years to ensure that I have not been overcharged as the insurance company is itself saying so right now.
On a whole, the entire experience was very painful and distasteful. My recommendation to users is a complete NO NO for NATMAR/National Insurance Company.