QBE Insurance

[Neka79]

..snip.. And as for making laws for the lowest common denominator... err, nope. They make laws for people who are stupid with a hint of common sense. I've seen the lowest common denominator, and if they made laws for them, cars would be banned.

cars?? banned??

I have my pedal car in the garage..maybe I should rent it to learners

or maybe u could use it to learn to drive once & for all??

[Shifty]

This is more of a general gripe than anything and is not targeted at anyone in particular, simply a reaction to a general anti-insurance vibe. I work in the insurance industry, and am very tired of people who seem to think insurance companies are trying to put one over them.

Your insurer will send you a policy document which you are required to read. Why do you think they sent it to you... as a paperweight? Hell, every insurer I've ever worked with/for even includes an introductory letter referring you to read the booklet, just in case you weren't smart enough to figure out that it was included so that you would read it.

Insurance is a legally binding contract for both parties. In this case it is good to see that the document has been read, and that the content of the document is being questioned.

Section 5: When You Are Not Insured

5.1 When You Are Not Insured For Theft or Damage To Your Bike

There is no insurance under Section 1 or clause 3.1

5.1.1 - for theft or damage when you ........leave your bike unattended and unlocked in a public place.

what do u classify as locked? steering lock, disc lock, chained to a tree?

Use some common sense. The insurer requires that you utilise any locking mechanisms that are provided with the bike, in most cases this would be turning off the ignition and removing the key. Failing to do this is no different than walking off down the road in Blacktown/St Kilda/Ipswich without winding up the windows and locking the doors. If you wanted to split hairs then you should really be locking the steering with the ignition too (car or bike). Refer to my comments about the policy document - what is the point of having a steering lock if you don't use the damn thing? It wasn't put there for show!

What do u classify as unattended? 1 meter away, 10 meters away, 1 meter way but u can see it through a window

As far as unattended goes, it is exactly that. If you are not with the bike (eg. you walk into a shop) then it is unattended. If you are with the bike (ie. standing beside it) then it is not unattended. Being inside a shop does nothing to deter a thief if your baby is out in the carpark unattended, but standing beside the thing does. Essentially I look at it this way - if you see someone shady walking past your bike, you have to be able to sit on the thing before they can. If you can't, then it's probably classed as unattended.

mind you, nothing stops a professional

That is quite correct. An insurer simply wants you to use the security devices you have to prevent any thefts that can be avoided, and will be happy to pay your claim if you have done everything a reasonable person would. The best prevention is a 24h satellite tracking system - it won't stop the bike being wheeled away but it will be tracked the moment it gets moved.

Wankers. They also have clasues like:
a) aftermarket accessories that make the vehicle unregisterable will void any claim - which gives them an out clause if you have an exhaust
b) claims will not be denied if an accessory fitted does not *contribute* to a claim.

I think that's fair enough too. Insurance is gambling, and nothing more scientific than that. The insurer gambles on the fact that they need to take 'x' amount of money from you (and anyone else with the same type of vehicle) to your insurer because on a scale of likeliness to be stolen your car comes up as 'y'. If the likelihood is increased above 'y' because of accessories you fitted, that you did not advise or they did not accept, then they have a right to cancel your 'bet' (policy) and not pay your 'winnings' (claim).

An example:

Say you have a 1999 Mitsubishi Lancer. Hubcaps, standard cassette player, standard bodywork. Say you have a second 1999 Mitsubishi Lancer that rocks up and parks beside it - lowered 3 inches and riding on 17" chrome wheels with a big spoiler in tow.

Which one is going to get noticed by Osama and the dodgy brothers? You guessed it. That said, the insurer can only decline the claim based on the accessories contributing to the claim/damage/loss. If the car is damaged in a hailstorm, the mags won't have contributed to the damge so they cannot decline your claim. If the car gets stolen, then they can deny the claim. You will often find that they won't actually decline the claim, in many cases they will instead pay you the value of the insured item minus the value of the undisclosed/unapproved modifications - unfortunately you don't hear about these situations in a positive light "my insurance company paid out my claim despite the fact that I lied to them", instead you hear "those bastards ripped me off and didn't pay for my wheels". That's the way of the world I'm afraid.

[Felix]

Shifty raises some good points.

Normally, if you fit accessories to a bike/car, then you need to tell the insurer about them. They can either accept the risk/value they add, increase your premium, or decline to continue covering your vehicle. But if they accept it, then they have to honour it in a claim.

Common sense will tell you that insurance companies don't make money by writing out a bunch of cheques. So they give themselves plenty of escape clauses. Bear in mind however, that insurance is competitive and that a company cant risk being known as the company that never pays out.

Interestingly, some companies obviously don't want to cover bikes. RACQ GIO for instance quoted me $865 to insure the ER-5 for no more than $4000. I pay $205. RACQ-GIO obviously aren't interested in insuring bikes.

[Shifty]

Normally, if you fit accessories to a bike/car, then you need to tell the insurer about them. They can either accept the risk/value they add, increase your premium, or decline to continue covering your vehicle. But if they accept it, then they have to honour it in a claim.

Exactly. If the insurer can't prove that the accessories caused/contributed to the claim then they can't deny the payout. The only exception to this is, on some more serious occasions (eg. not advising of DUI convictions or loss of license) an insurer may cancel your policy because had you advised them of the full information in the first place, they would never have given you a policy and therefore should not be in a situation where they have to pay this claim. In this case you will likely receive a refund to your last renewal date and the insurer will wave goodbye. This is the exception rather than the rule, and at the end of the day if it happens to you it's your own damn fault because you tried to cheat the system.

Common sense will tell you that insurance companies don't make money by writing out a bunch of cheques. So they give themselves plenty of escape clauses. Bear in mind however, that insurance is competitive and that a company cant risk being known as the company that never pays out.

Spot on. Until recently most insurers operated at a considerable loss and profited purely from investing their trading capital (for example, a $2m liability claim might take two years to be raised and another five years to go through the courts, and the insurer gets a compounding 10% return per year on the claim payout while it sits as an investment. By the time they pay the claim it may not have cost them anything! Car/bike insurance is different and there is very little investment income). Recent world and local events have changed this and now insurers are tightening the belt - mostly from an efficiency standpoint - and are trading at a profit of 2-5% plus investment income.

They don't make money by paying claims, but they also don't make money by being the bad guy. That's why, like I mentioned in my last post, they pay HEAPS of claims that they shouldn't have to, just to stave off the "insurance bastards" comments that are in many cases unjustified.

Interestingly, some companies obviously don't want to cover bikes. xxxxxxx for instance quoted me $865 to insure the ER-5 for no more than $4000. I pay $205. xxxxxxx obviously aren't interested in insuring bikes.

Very well interpreted. Often an insurer will price themselves out of the market on a product they don't want to become a big part of their business. That's not to say xxxxxxx is doing this, they might just have had a bad run with the ER5 (remember it is oft used as a learner bike so they might have some scary crash stats) and as such just not want to insure that particular model.

Out of interest the first quote for my GPX600 was $800/year, and the second one was $230/year. My GPZ900 is $260/year.

[Smitty]

...
I have my pedal car in the garage..maybe I should rent it to learners
or maybe u could use it to learn to drive once & for all??

hmmm
I reckon I am past the pedal car* stage
(my grandkids are another matter )
how so?
a 1.31 lap at Sandown and a 1.55 lap at PI in the car...plus
various HiPerformance driving certificates and a CAMS 2S licence
sorta sez I know how to steer a cage....



* metal pedal cars (most of which are at least 25yo)
are selling on eBay for around the $500-$1000mark
I am hanging on to mine....

cheers

[Smitty]

.....various HiPerformance driving certificates and a CAMS 2S licence sorta sez I know how to steer a cage....
cheers

but does NOT get me any discount on my insurance




back on topic now....

[Cath]

I've seen the lowest common denominator, and if they made laws for them, cars would be banned.

Jase, you're killing me
I bet you've seen *a lot* of the lowest common denominator! Poor bastard

Shifty, thanks for injecting some reason and facts into the thread. Your posts were very interesting.

[mrmina]

.... I work in the insurance industry, and am very tired of people who seem to think insurance companies are trying to put one over them.

shifty.... dont talk shit.

insurance companies will do anything to get out of paying a claim.

i know this first hand

[zx'er]

.1

As far as unattended goes, it is exactly that. If you are not with the bike (eg. you walk into a shop) then it is unattended. If you are with the bike (ie. standing beside it) then it is not unattended. Being inside a shop does nothing to deter a thief if your baby is out in the carpark unattended, but standing beside the thing does. Essentially I look at it this way - if you see someone shady walking past your bike, you have to be able to sit on the thing before they can. If you can't, then it's probably classed as unattended.

Ok Shifty thanks for shedding the light on us poor uninformeds. But I am afraid I still have a problem here. I use my bike to ride. Sometimes when i head into town and I see it's a nice day/night I use the bike. One of the reasons I insured was so that while i was enjoying myself at a cafe/restaurant/club, I can rest assured that should some bastid decide to take a really nice liking to my bike and feel the need to provide a new shelter for it, then, simply because I was not standing next to it, that I am not covered???? So the way I understand this is that I should only take my bike out when I know that it is constantly going to be in my sights. Am I right here or have I missed the point? If I haven't.....what about when I am in bed? Surely this is classed as unattended too?

Not being a smartarse mate....just a bit hard to believe is all.

[Shifty]

shifty.... dont talk shit.

insurance companies will do anything to get out of paying a claim.

i know this first hand

It's a legal contract for fark's sake. If you follow the policy to the letter then they follow the policy to the letter. You don't play ball, they don't play ball... simple as that.

I have been in the industry with a number of different companies and am yet to see one that is dodgy. I was heavily involved in underwriting new policies and claims in my previous job, and of the thousands of 'flagged claims' (ie. ones where an issue is raised with non-disclosure or something seems fishy) I dealt with I can only think of half a dozen where the claim was actually declined and each of these were fair enough (eg. undisclosed DUI convictions, etc).

If you think you got a raw deal don't just whinge, do something about it and approach the governing bodies and/or a solicitor.

[MickLC]

zx'er - the line originally posted says unattended and unlocked...if you walk away and don't even bother to lock the ignition then don't go crying to them, that's all they are saying. They wouldn't deny a claim just 'cause you were in town and not standing next to your locked bike.

[MickLC]

Mina - so much I want to say but I'm too polite, luckily Shifty is too.

[Shifty]

I can be nasty if I want to

But seriously, if the claim is a recent one and you haven't signed anything to state you waive your rights by accepting their payment, let me know what happened by PM and I will find out what your options are.

[zx'er]

zx'er - the line originally posted says unattended and unlocked...if you walk away and don't even bother to lock the ignition then don't go crying to them, that's all they are saying. They wouldn't deny a claim just 'cause you were in town and not standing next to your locked bike.

AAAAHHHHH I c. Thanks then for that. Feel much better now. I can understand that and fully agree with it. thanx again

[Felix]

It was (and still is) fairly common practice in the country town near where my folks live to jump out of the car, grab a paper and the milk, while leaving the car idling away. This is the sort of thing they won't pay out for, and is illegal anyway.