The reason we insure ourselves with the NRMA insurance company is historical. At one time it *was* a part of the NRMA… which is the ‘National Road Motoring Association’ (I think :)).
As with other organisations of their type, they ran an insurance arm for the benefit of their members with all profits going to support the road assistance section. Well of course the directors saw a way of making an easy buck… and after some *extremely* bitter and downright nasty boardroom battles… the insurance arm was sold off.
Those of us who’d been members for some time (5+ years in our case) got our share of the spoils… even though we’d voted no… I mean we could hardly turn it down could we.
Anyway… because as always it’s easier to carry on with something than change we kept our insurances with them. However, it waw very clear very soon their modus operandi had changed and instead of ‘being there’ for the members… it was now there simply for profit.
The result has been that whenever we have tried to claim against the policy… as one does through the years… they have knocked back **everything**. Regardless of the situation that caused the claim it’s all managed to be covered… or rather not… be the exclusions.
Even in *this* case they are struggling to avoid paying out! I mean the fire… which is what it was after all… burned through the electric blanket, two duvets and burned a foot wide two inch deep hole in the mattress. However, because the room wasn’t actually ‘ablaze’ with ‘naked flame’… they are trying to tell us it comes under the heading of ‘accidental damage’ and therefore subject to a $300 excess!! I mean this is totally ridiculous… and anyway it *did* blaze after I pulled the duvets off the electric blanket!! Anyway, even when we persuaded them that this *might* just qualify as a fire… they refused to allow us to go out and purchase a new mattress in case one of their suppliers could provide one at a lower cost than we could obtain one.
In the meantime of course… we have no mattress. Does this matter to them? Not one bit. In fact, to add insult to injury, want to send out an assessor to judge the costs incurred if any. And of course… they don’t go out to assess claims on Friday, Saturday or Sunday… but they might be able to come out early next week. In other words, they feel it’s accaptable to leave us with nothing to sleep on for a minimum of three days and up to a week!!
All I can say is what a bunch of bastards!!! As soon as this is settled we’ll be moving *everything* to another company… almost *any* other company. I suppose they’re all pretty much the same now so it probably won’t make any difference to us but it might make us feel better!
More on this as the story develops!
The Eclectic Interweb 