Replacement keys. It's a long one. (1 Viewer)

[Deleted member 29692]

A lot of you saw the thread from last month about the break in we had at home and the stolen keys.

This is a bit of an update on that.

Car No 1 insured with M&S insurance. Sorted. No issues.
Car No 2 insured with BMW insurance. Sorted quickly. No issues.

Now we come to the bloody motorhome.

Firstly I discovered that you can't actually speak to Comfort about claims with no third party involvement. The numbers go straight to the main Aviva call centre where you will have the pleasure of speaking to a selection of pre programmed call centre monkeys and if you are lucky maybe 1 in 6 actually has a faint idea of what a motorhome actually is. Even fewer understand what's involved in sorted out this sort of issue - chassis keys & locks, hab keys & locks, alarm key fobs. First of all they appointed a garage to deal with it which I thought may have been fine but no. The garage only did accident repairs so they refused it. The also had some kind of vague conversation with the dealer I bought the van from who shall remain nameless. My new pet monkeys at Aviva seemed to be struggling with what to do next so seeing as I seemed to have more of an idea of what was required than they did I offered to get the various quotes together. Once I started getting some idea of prices and the total was looking a lot less than I thought I decided to put the monkeys out of my misery, cancel the claim and just pay for it all myself.

I spoke to the aforementioned dealer and they said yes, we can sort all of that, I'll do you a quote.

All of it? So I queried this and lo and behold they didn't mean all of it, they just meant the hab locks. They couldn't help with the chassis keys or alarm. And they still haven't send me a quote!!!

So next I spoke to Karen at Highbridge Caravans. Top class service as usual. Temporary hab key direct from France to me, as far as I can work out arriving about 14 hours after I paid her the princely sum of £7. She's also sorted a complete new set of locks and keys for the hab side which are on their way to me as we speak.

Next was Ash at Vanbitz for the alarm. Once again top class help and service with nothing too much trouble.
First of all was advice on disarming the alarm without a key fob which went smoothly and today sorting out some settings on the Nav/Radio to get that working. Just some new fobs to sort out for the alarm now and they're on the case.


Chassis keys were a bit more of an issue.

The local Fiat commercial dealer was my first port of call. New keys and locks. Explained where it was and that they would need to recode the keys on site as obviously it wasn't moving very far otherwise. Oh no we can't do that. You'll have to get it recovered to us. I explained the storage location and that I thought a big enough recovery vehicle might struggle and eventually, very grudgingly, he told me that the AA might do it on site and that I'd have to have a temporary ignition key for them to code and then once I could move it bring it into them for a full lockset. Apparently this had to be done because coding new keys doesn't delete the old ones. He sent me a quote which was as eyewatering as you might expect so I had a closer look, queried why it was locks plural as there isn't anything on the outside of the vehicle that can be opened with the ignition key apart from the diesel cap. Also by that point I had established that he was lying through his teeth about the old keys - when you code new ones it deletes any that aren't present. I spoke to the AA and confirmed that they could do it then told the (unhappy) gentleman at Fiat to scrap his quote and just order me 2 replacement keys.

The AA locksmith turned up when he said he would and eventually after a false start that I don't think was his fault and a second visit the day we were booked to go away for New Year he got me up and running in the nick of time. I can't fault them at all. About 6 hours the first visit and a second visit all in the fixed price I was quoted for what should have been a 20 minute job - that's how long it took on the second visit.

We're not quite there yet - I need to fit or get fitted the new hab locks when they arrive from Highbridge and the alarm fobs are in progress but if I had left it in the hands of the monkeys I don't think anything would have happened yet.

So to summarise: Big shout outs (once again) to Highbridge Caravans, Vanbitz and the AA. Top class service all round as always.

The original dealer. Not going to name them but there aren't many Rapido agents based in Berkshire. This is the latest in a string of after sales fails. Come on boys, if you don't want any more of my money just say so but to not even bother sending an email saying you can't/don't want to help is pretty damn poor.

Comfort. Not particularly happy there either. Might have to have a rethink when the renewal comes up. Price isn't everything.

 

[Anthea M]

Glad it is eventually getting sorted. Hope it doesn't knock the shine off your motorhome adventures.

 

[Charlie]

Glad it's finally sorted, Mental note made of those that helped and those that failed miserably but most of all the good guys and it's nice to hear another positive for Vanbitz as they are forum regulars and sponsors....

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[gus-lopez]

There is nothing worse than any business or government department that has a load of telephone answerers that can offer nothing but false promises & placatory waffle.
Boris' LEz scum are like that but at least I know (Now ).
The "Attendance allowance" was another load of tossers that got taken to task for doing it.

Glad you got it sorted but I'd make doubly sure that the "claim " on the MH is struck out & keep an eye on it when you change at year end to ensure that the Itinerants don't still consider it as a "claim" even though they did fa.

 

[MikeD]

I read your post with interest and had something similiar with Aviva when we had our claim for a RTA with the motorhome - what a farce dealing with them was.

And if the Berkshire dealer is the one I was going to buy a new van from but rang and rang and could never get an answer - that was on a Saturday as well - we just gave up and bought a different make from another dealer.

I took the view if you can't answer the phone when you spend £50k. What chance for any warranty problems.

 

[dshague]

was just thinking of changing to comfort tomorrow ,will now stick with present insurance company .comfort was cheaper.
thanks for your post ...

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[Deleted member 29692]

It wasn't intended to be a pop at Comfort particularly. I think the same thing could happen with any policy underwritten by Aviva no matter who the broker is.

 

[sedge]

I have to say - we had an horrific experience with the Trophy and Aviva - NU - years ago. Was a fortnight old and bought from a slightly main Triumph dealer called 'On Yer Triumph' in Aylesbury. The accident was IN Aylesbury and we were taking it back there for it's first service. Ooops they said, took it in their stride and put the windshield back on, stuck a new indicator on it etc, and we went home clutching the accident damage estimate. We didn't go elsewhere and get any other estimate - whyever would we?

Claims dept in Ireland. They wanted it taken to the Approved Repairer for our postcode - a Coventry postcode. Told me who that was and to my surprise they were in Alfreton. I hadn't been to Alfreton recently - but when I did years ago - it was quite near Derby. So I rang Colleen and asked if there was anywhere nearer, apparently not. So I rang the repairer. A Triumph? what is it then luv - a Stag or something? No, a Trophy motorbike. We don't repair bikes I should take it to a motorbike place if I was you! So anyway - their Inspector rang. He met Pete when he was already nearly in Aylesbury, because he was on the way to the garage and they'd said it MUST be inspected there, so we'd arranged to take it - but after he'd already left home on it to go there, the chap himself phoned me and said he'd look at it at home, cos he only lived a couple of miles away! - then went on himself to On Yer Triumph where he went once a week anyway, and handed them the Approval authorisation there and then. So they rang us and we took it there at the weekend. There was a delay getting something so we couldn't have it back that week, would be the following week, but obviously they didn't want to reassemble stuff then remove it again if they could help it - fine.

During the second week, Colleen rang me - she said it was FAR too expensive and they couldn't POSSIBLY authorise the repair. I told her to ring the Service Manager at the dealers then - cos I most certainly wasn't going to tell him that after THEIR engineer had authorised it on their behalf weeks ago! His name is Bruce by the way - and put the phone down.

We went to collect it the following Saturday and asked if she'd phoned them. Apparently - not !

One assumes it was paid as we never heard another word about it from the garage or NU.

ISTR it was about the same time they had a telly Ad saying don't make a drama out of a crisis!

We didn't - THEY did !

 

[Deleted member 29692]

A little addendum to this that’s popped up a couple of years after the event.

A synopsis for anyone that doesn’t want to read back: we had a burglary in December 2015 in which both sets of MH keys were stolen. Just the keys. This is important to remember.

Comfort/Aviva demonstrated such astounding incompetence when I tried to claim that I lost the will to live, told them to forget it and sorted it out (and paid for it) myself.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.

It emerged, spotted by one of my bike insurers, that the incompetent loons at Aviva had registered my phone call as a completed claim for total loss of the motorhome on the CUE database which is an insurance industry internal database to catch fraud.

Comfort couldn’t give a toss.

Much hilarity (not) then insued trying to sort this out.

That’s done it for me with Comfort and Aviva. When the renewal is due I don’t care how cheap they are. I’ll happily pay 10 times as much to avoid these two pathetic excuses of companies.

@Jim is it possible to alter my previous review of Comfort?

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[pappajohn]

Now get ready for an increased premium next renewal.
You initiated a claim, the risk changed and that will now be on your insurance file. ..even though you cancelled it.
Nearly always worth biting the bullet from day one and not getting insurers involved if the cost isn't a lot more than your excess.

 

[MikeD]

A little addendum to this that’s popped up a couple of years after the event.

A synopsis for anyone that doesn’t want to read back: we had a burglary in December 2015 in which both sets of MH keys were stolen. Just the keys. This is important to remember.

Comfort/Aviva demonstrated such astounding incompetence when I tried to claim that I lost the will to live, told them to forget it and sorted it out (and paid for it) myself.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.

It emerged, spotted by one of my bike insurers, that the incompetent loons at Aviva had registered my phone call as a completed claim for total loss of the motorhome on the CUE database which is an insurance industry internal database to catch fraud.

Comfort couldn’t give a toss.

Much hilarity (not) then insued trying to sort this out.

That’s done it for me with Comfort and Aviva. When the renewal is due I don’t care how cheap they are. I’ll happily pay 10 times as much to avoid these two pathetic excuses of companies.

@Jim is it possible to alter my previous review of Comfort?

Comfort and Aviva were useless when we had a claim as well. Lost the paperwork twice. I would not use them now either.

 

[Jagtazman]

Sorry to hear of your issues
I work in the industry and agree it's not all plain sailing and majority if issues comes from claims. However your experience of Comfort and Aviva is the complete opposite to me and there was also no Third Party imvolved. From start to finish they were excellent. Just goes to show it all depends who picks up the phone.
Strange but true I encounter this all the time.
That said I totally understand and would do the same and change on principal.

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[Deleted member 29692]

Now get ready for an increased premium next renewal.
You initiated a claim, the risk changed and that will now be on your insurance file. ..even though you cancelled it.
Nearly always worth biting the bullet from day one and not getting insurers involved if the cost isn't a lot more than your excess.

I know that and it's irrelevant.

I'd declared the theft of keys as I've done on all my other policies. This happened two years ago.

I hadn't declared theft and total loss of the motorhome because it didn't bloody happen. This is what the bike insurers had an issue with.

EDIT: For the record declaring the key thefts or not makes no difference whatsoever to my premiums. I know this because I've done plenty fo research.

 

[tonyidle]

Now get ready for an increased premium next renewal.
You initiated a claim, the risk changed and that will now be on your insurance file. ..even though you cancelled it.
Nearly always worth biting the bullet from day one and not getting insurers involved if the cost isn't a lot more than your excess.

In theory that doesn't work because you're supposed to report to your insurance company anything that happens to the vehicle whether you claim for it or not.

 

[olley]

Had an accident on the Paris ring road, no damage to my RV. Filled a claim form in with the other driver, it was my fault, sent it of to Aviva, never heard anymore.

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