Crap Customer Service Spotlight: Zurich Insurance

Zurich are a big insurance and financial services company. They have launched a new ad campaign which cunningly replaces the letter 's' at the end of the word 'happens' with a 'z' - presumably in some marketing lunacy intended to connect with the name Zurich, because it has a 'z' in it too. Or perhaps somebody was just cheating at scrabble and really wanted that triple word score?

Anyway, my cunning marketing slogan,'Because Shit Happenz', is more squarely pointed at my experience of them sorting out an insurance claim...

You may remember this incident I had on January 6th this year, when a Borough of Poole dustcart sideswiped me on the way into work in Poole. The pic in that post was of course a FFFFPFF, I elaborated on the damage to my car in this post (pic repeated on the right).

Now, I have heard people complain about insurance claims before, more accurately where they were 'non-fault', saying even if the work is eventually done you never end up on the 'right' end of the deal. I have lost track of the time and aggravation this has cost me and here we are, nearly five months later, and I still haven't been paid for the damage.

To explain, I finally got the car fixed on the 11th April and, having had the go ahead from Zurich to get the work done, I sent the invoice I had paid in to Zurich, along with a nice covering letter explaining everything, so they could reimburse me.

Now, having heard nothing by yesterday, I thought I'd get in touch. I had been given no e-mail contact and none were listed on their website (I hate that - especially as they always make you fill in a form with your own e-mail address on, in order to contact them - which I did, asking for an e-mail address). So, I phoned them. My contact for the claim told me they had been chased for payment by the Ford dealer and sent them a cheque (he was looking at this on a computer, I understand) - however could I wait while he got all the paperwork relating to the claim? Of course, I said.

Well, after a good five minutes of silence I wondered if I'd been cut off, so I re-dialled and spoke to someone else, to whom I gave my number, and they assured me they would get this chap to call me back. Nothing. It was getting on in the day so I thought, fair enough, he'll call me back in the morning.

Well, as it happened, the bod from the Zurich website came up with an e-mail address - result! So I e-mailed the guy this morning and he phoned me up. The conversation went a little bit like this...

Zurich: I just got your e-mail

RO: Yes, you didn't call me back yesterday, a colleague of yours took a number and said you would call.

Zurich: I didn't get any message.

RO: [You surprise me, as my faith in your systems is still brimming] So, what have you found out?

Zurich: Well, I still can't find the documents, I think that because it is a settled claim, the documents have been put into archive.

RO: Oh, so when will I get my money?

Zurich: Well, because we have paid the Ford dealer instead of you, the easiest thing for you to do would be to contact them and ask them to pay you.

RO: I'm sorry?

Zurich: Ask them to pay you.

RO: Umm... but you are supposed to settle the claim with me.

Zurich: Yes, but it means we'll have to wait to get the money back from them before we can pay you.

RO: So let me get this right, you have made a mistake and sent the money to the wrong place and now you want me to sort it out for you?

Zurich: Yes.

RO: But, it's not my problem.

[He actually interrupted me here...]

Zurich: Well it is your problem.

RO: Umm, did you just say it's my problem? [What a twat! Get thee to customer service school... My problem is that you have f**cked -up.]

Zurich: Well, you would probably get your money faster, it could take another month otherwise.

RO: Look, I'd rather you contact the Ford dealer and sort this out properly and let me know when you've done it, okay?

Zurich: Okay.

Wowzers. I mean, apart from appalling customer service, what does this say about their audit trail. Legally, they haven't actually settled the claim, however they ask me to sort out their f**k-up for them! If I did what they had asked, got paid by the third party, and then rang them up again in another month and asked them why they hadn't paid me, how could they prove they had? Not that I do fraud, but you have to question their accountability - they could end up paying me twice.

Anyway, after calling me again because they couldn't find the Ford dealer's number, they eventually told me the dealer hadn't received their cheque either. Talk about mucking about. Although that was a good thing apprently because it meant they didn't have to delay paying me. Like it was my fault they had paid the wrong people!

This isn't over yet, I can tell. With Zurich, I can tell 'Shit Happenz' a lot.