I'm 21 years old and after getting my P plates I bought myself a brand new Suzuki Swift. I absolutely loved my car but while driving one day, lost control on a poorly maintained dirt road and wrote it off. I was devastated to say the least. The car was insured with Budget Direct. When I rang to put in my claim, everything was fine, they were friendly, a little slow in getting things done but it wasn't until I was assigned one particular claim officer that things really turned bad.
Nathan Harris, my claim officer didn't tell me of the paperwork I needed to put in until 3 weeks after my accident. He rang and was rude, saying "where's your registration, copy of your finance statement and service log? I cant do anything until you send them to me." I was never told by anyone from Budget Direct that I had to send these documents and as this was the first claim I'd ever made, didn't know that was something that was required
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Nathan also corresponded a fair bit with my mum and treated her in the some way he treated me. He was rude, patronising, unhelpful, basically he just dragged everything out, never responded to any calls, faxes, lost papers that I sent through, that GE finance sent through.
They also undervalued my car by $3000.00. I know this because my father works for Suzuki Australia and my mother works for an insurance asssessor. My father rang and spoke to him because it had been a month and the claim was still going, and Nathan had the audacity to accuse my mum and I of being lairs, saying that things were taking so long because we were dragging them out not submitting documents (which were sent 3 times or more). Dad ended up writing a 2 and a half page letter to Budget Direct telling them of the situation to which there was no reply.
The funny thing was, despite having written one car off, they gave me an insurance policy with my new car. I have the letter and everything. once things turned nasty, I cancelled that policy choosing to go with Just Car instead. The day after my claim was finalised I recieved a letter saying that they would not renew my insurance.
After a month and a half the claim was finally settled. After being in a car accident and losing something you've worked so hard to save for and buy, you don't need to have to deal with people who are rude and drag the situation like that out and I learnt 2 very important lessons from the accident - try to avoid dirt roads and don't insure anything with Budget Direct.
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