Motor Insurance & Customer Retention: A Pain in the Neck

I am very grateful to the UK motor insurance industry for finally cold calling me with something useful; the chance to feedback how I truly feel about the state of the industry. First and foremost this is an industry offering a dysfunctional Experience in so many ways. Consider these not unusual events:

Event 1: crashing into a car at less than 2mph, no damage done, photos taken.
Outcome: whiplash claim, a motor insurer that immediately accepted liability ignoring my protestations that this was an obvious fraud.

Event 2: car crashes into me; I quite clearly state no health effects
Outcome: plagued by cold calling motor claims companies offering to get me some compensation which I never wanted in the first place.

Of course, with so much of this going on the real impact is the regular increase in insurance premiums for all drivers. Surely it is not beyond the industry to stand up to this death spiral of litigation? Just the simple act of listening to customers may be a start and will significantly help in Customer Retention. Perhaps I don’t want my details sold on to third parties who are then going to harass me with calls; perhaps it would be nice if when I say I don’t accept this claim, I felt like you were at least paying attention.

Until legal changes occur the fundamental issues of unnecessary claims will remain but creating a culture of listening and customer care is surely not beyond their wit. Just hearing a nice voice on the end of the line explaining the problems with whiplash at the moment and that the photos were taken into consideration (and here is a copy of our correspondence) or an effective means of blocking selling my details onto other insurers would be a start.