Now I know you want to read about all the action from last weekend’s Monterey Classic Car Week auctions, concours, Motorsports Reunion and free drinks but we have more important things to discuss first. Like how you are getting done over by car insurers.
On Monday, The Australian’s Michael Roddan revealed exclusively that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission had put the members of the Insurance Council of Australia in the naughty corner for selling hopeless products through car dealerships. In February, ASIC boss, Greg “the car insurance buyer’s friend” Medcraft, whacked the insurance companies (seven of them control 90 per cent of the market), saying they were selling products they wouldn’t buy themselves or recommend to family and friends.
Last year Greg’s ASIC mob found insurance sold through dealers involved high-pressure tactics, inadequate information, sky-high commissions and conflicts of interest. Just like the rest of the products dealers sell then.
Now you’re probably thinking “lucky I’m insured with my motoring club like RACV or NRMA” because they have slogans like “we’re there for you”.
Well just think about reader John. His daughter is a working mother with a one-year-old baby. Some joyriders stole her six-week-old car from her home in June. Naturally, they crashed it and wrote it off. RACV’s first response was to insinuate that daughter, husband and one-year-old were pulling a swiftie. It engaged a private investigator to interview both — they would probably have interrogated the baby but he was asleep at the time.
The private detective told them to deliver their phone records and financial statements. After six weeks, RACV advised John’s daughter that it accepted her claim and she, hubby and baby probably weren’t involved in a midnight spares scam — al-though I have always been a bit suspicious about John’s grandson. Never trust a one-year-old, I say.
Like most motor club insurers, RACV says on its website: “You can choose to have your car replaced with a new car of the same make and model if you have a total loss, and your car is less than two years old and owned from new.” But this is the car industry — worse, the car insurance industry.
Eight weeks after the 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee 75th Anniversary Edition was nicked, RACV agreed to settle. Immediately after the theft, Jeep had some 75th Anniversary Editions around but by July 30, RACV said no, they’ve all gone. John felt this gave RACV wiggle room to say that since they couldn’t produce a new car of the same make and model they would make a cash offer to settle the claim. Their cash offer was $18,000 less than John’s daughter paid for the car only six weeks before it was stolen! John’s daughter told the RACV that Jeep had a “Blackhawk” edition that was close to the stolen car and about the same price, and she would be happy with that, but RACV wouldn’t have a bar of it.
So, two weeks ago we emailed the public relations boss at RACV, explained the issue and asked for a response. Deadline came and went so last weekend I mentioned the RACV at the bottom of this column. On Monday, another RACV person rang so I sent him the same email. He replied: “We are keen to have a chat to the member as there is a little more to the story than has been disclosed, and the member has not responded to our inquiries over the past fortnight in relation to this matter, so a final outcome hasn’t been reached.”
Ah, so I was right. The baby was at fault. But no.
Little known to the club’s PR operative, John’s daughter had received a revised settlement offer from the RACV that she could live with, and because she was sick of the whole affair she settled and ordered a new Blackhawk. Her RACV case manager acknowledged to her the situation they put her in (refusing to replace limited-edition model vehicles when written off). I hope Mr Medcraft gets on to this as well.
And the Herald Sun’s Mark Buttler (I hope I get some brownie points from the boss for all these mentions of News Corp publications) has solved the mystery of the rising price of Australian-made cars. In a front-page report headlined “Crush Hour”, Mark reveals Victorian police are crushing more than 100 cars a month. These are cars formerly owned by drunk, banned and escaping drivers. More than 75 per cent of the crushed cars are Holdens and Falcons. Unfortunately, none are hybrid or electric autos.
A full report on the auctions next week but let me mention Bonhams sold one of 64 road-legal V12 1995 McLaren F1s for $20 million. Nice return on investment with original cost of $1.5m.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
