A reader who we will call Tony – although that is not his name – has been actively involved in getting his son Jimmy (again, not his real name) an insurance policy with AIG but it has not been plain sailing and he was “panicking” when he sent us a mail last week.
Tony bought his Jimmy a car and sorted out AIG Box Insurance. In case you are unfamiliar with such policies, they use a black-box-type device installed in the car which uses signals from the car and GPS data to track the driving behaviour of the insured motorist. It gives companies a degree of assurance that the – mainly – young people who are insured in this way are driving safely and less likely to make a claim.
So that’s all good then.
Except in the middle of January Jimmy got a letter from AIG warning him that his policy was about to be cancelled as the box that was a precondition of his insurance had yet to be installed.
Tony sent us the mail that Jimmy sent to AIG which outlines just what happened.
“Since I took out my insurance with you I have not driven the car as I was awaiting the box to be installed. I am a full-time secondary school student and have a lift to school each day,” Jimmy wrote. I’ve taken 11 lessons with a driving instructor in her vehicle so there was never a reason to drive the car,” he told them.
“The car was purchased by my parents so that when I hopefully pass my driving test I may have the option of the car as a mode of transport to college next year,” Jimmy’s letter continued.
“I have made every possible effort since I took out my car insurance policy with you to facilitate getting the box installed in my car,” he continued.
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“On the first occasion I received an email from the company that the box would be fitted on December 18th. I rang the company before this date and explained my school was 20 minutes from my house where the car was parked. I was advised by the box company that the engineer would text 30 minutes before they would arrive. On the day, the engineer texted when he was outside the house where the car was parked. I told him I would be with him in 20 minutes. He refused to wait as he had another appointment and said to reschedule the appointment.”
Jimmy said he “fully explained that I rang the company the day before and was informed that the engineer would text 30 minutes before the appointment and this had not happened. I was again told by the engineer that he would not wait. I explained that I believed that this was very unfair as I had done everything in my power to ensure that the box could be fitted that day.”
The engineer left and Jimmy was told to ring the insurance company to schedule another appointment.
So Jimmy rang AIG “and spoke to a very helpful assistant. I explained fully what had happened. She arranged to have another appointment made. I received an email that another appointment was rescheduled for December 30th. I waited for the engineer to arrive and he had not arrived by 2pm so I phoned the box company. I explained that I received the appointment notice that the box would be fitted on December 30th and had responded yes in the text. I was told by the lady that they had not received the text ‘yes’ and they ended up cancelling the appointment. She apologised that this had happened and explained that she would contact the insurers on my behalf to explain and get the appointment rescheduled.”
So Jimmy waited until January 9th but “I had not received any contact or details of another appointment. I rang the box company again and was told I needed to contact my insurance company. I rang AIG and explained the entire situation to him. He said that he would arrange for the appointment to be rescheduled. I waited all this week for an appointment but no appointment transpired.”
The next thing Jimmy heard from the company was that it was cancelling the policy because he had not had the box installed.
“I have tried everything in my power to make sure the box would be fitted in my car,” Jimmy says. “As you can see from my email, there was nothing more that I could have done.”
We contacted AIG and received the following statement. “As with all of our telematics-based car policies, a telematics device (box) is a standard requirement. The policyholder was informed of this requirement at the time of purchase and we have repeatedly attempted to schedule the installation. The policyholder has been contacted again to arrange a device installation. Rather than cancel the policy, we have offered extended coverage, pending a successful installation to fulfill the policy requirements.”