I tried to avoid the object by steering my car to the right, but unfortunately, the rear left tire went over the object and resulted in a damaged rim and a shredded tire.
BHPian theexperthand recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
An unfortunate incident happened while I was driving to Kerala last week – at around 9 PM, a few meters before the Kuthiran toll, I saw an object on the road – I was doing around 70 kmph. The object was in front of my left front wheel, and since there were no vehicles on my right side, I tried to avoid the object by steering my car to the right, but unfortunately, the rear left tire went over the object and resulted in a damaged rim and a shredded tire.
The Damage:
The alloy was damaged and the tire was fully shredded – since I had opted for tire protection, decided to claim insurance – called up my agent Priya next day and sent her the videos and photos and she assured me that she would raise the claim once I am ready to drop off the car at the service center. I drove back to Bangalore using the spare tire and on Monday morning Priya raised the claim and sent the claim number. Around noon I dropped the car at Prerana Motors Kudlu gate and since the claim was already registered, all I had to do was to fill out a form and I was out in a few minutes.
I got the surveyor assigned on the same day and the next day he did the survey and informed the showroom that insurance would pay for the alloy, but for the tire, I would not get any amount since my car had already done 32K km and the life of the tire is only 30-35K km. The tire protection add-on page of Reliance insurance does not say anything about the KM limit – it only says that I am eligible for 50% of the amount if my tire tread depth is between 3 to 5 mm, so I asked Priya to ask the surveyor to get the thread depth measured. There was a lot of back-and-forth communication between the service center, surveyor, and my insurance agent (which I was being kept updated by my agent) but there was no real progress. Initially, the excuse was the measuring equipment had to come from peenya center, then it changed to “Sir, we have to take the tire to a tire showroom to get the exact measurement and now we are talking to the surveyor about who will bear the cost”. When the discussion was on the cost, Priya got the service center and surveyor on a conference call and said that they would bear the cost and customer is frustrated and is thinking about changing the service center, etc. Not sure what exactly transpired, but within 30 minutes after the call I got the thread depth measurement done.
Tyre tread depth measurement:
Lo and behold – when the thread depth was measured, my thread depth was about 5 mm, and the insurer paid me 50% for the tire cost.
Few takeaways from the incident, especially since it was the first time I am claiming insurance:
- Always click a picture at the spot where the incident happened, it helps during the claim (I missed doing it).
- Read through the fine print before you take the add-ons.
- Independently validate the findings of the surveyor.
- It always pays to have a good and competent agent at your side. In my case, the insurance was taken through Adhwaith Solutions, and the POC was Priya – without her relentless followup, I would have ended up spending for the tire from my pocket.
- There is no sync between the Reliance app and the website – I still do not see any claim registered against my policy if I go to the app, but I can see the status on the website. Also, the status is not updated in real-time.
The total bill was 37888 INR, out of which Insurence paid 26121 INR.
–Anoop
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