further to my storm damage catatrophe naturelle post dose any one else have experience of claiming from Pacifica? As someone whomhas worked in the insurance industry around the world I am astonished at the use of seemingly every trick in the book to avoid the claim! including
1. delays its been 3 weeks now and still no acceptance of my claim.
2. delays it took their 'expert' 2 weeks to turn up
2. disappearing emails I have now had to send evidence/ devis etc 3 times as apparently emails sent to the 'expert' have not arrived (trust me they have all been sent to the correct, same address each time)
3. telling me that nothing could be done because the declaration of catastophe naturelle takes 12 months (untrue).
4. disputing cover.. including how many rooms in my house! whether the area damage was on my property, whether the wall that collapsed was part of the construction of the house,
5. never being able to get through to those on the phone everbody conected to my case is either out of the office or unable to return calls.
6, despite being a BRITLINE service no one speaks English.
I could go on and I have already had to pay to have the road cleared out side my house. Is this behaviour nowmal from French insurance companies? I sthere an 'ombudsman' tocomplain to
Finally after 7 weeks they have paid up! However still nothing in writing or email or phone just the money in the account. This exercise has been a real eyeopener for me on French insurance culture. The question now is should I move insureres or would the others be the same on a claim of this size (20K ewuros +++)
PS Britiline where no use at all with PACIFICA and have recommended I complain in writing to Pacifica's head office!
And I am sure I would not have been paid without John Dislins help at PLEASHELP.FR
a further update... Pacifica have 'accepted' the claim but have now asked the 'expert' for recommendations and costs... apparently this is not the same as the report that took 4 weeks to prepare! so 4 and half weeks after the disaster still no indication as to when what or how much. And the good news is we are expecting severe weather this week on my currently unsupported terrace!
I have used Pacifica for a number of years but have heard nothing but bad from Britline, I go to my local CA branch or contact my branch conseilliere and never had a problem.
I needed a mutuelle set up within 24 hours (cmu was refused and orl rdv the next day) scanned and emailed the docs to my conseilliere at the bank, she drove out the next day, just before we left for the rdv so we'd be covered. A few years ago dishwasher went wrong, phoned Pacifica directly and they told us to get a quote to replace the broken part and to buy another. Phoned later that day, got the go ahead for purchasing a new one, money in our account within 48 hours.
Oh and here is the latest! They have asked us to prove that we own the house via an attestation from our Notaire (150 euros!) and that we don’t have a mortgage. We bought the house with an inheritance proving no outstanding loans is impossible. Finally they are suggesting that our policy shoul ne new for old! How is this possible for a 400 year old stone house?
BRITLINE sells you the insurance and then you have to deal with Pacifica in French.
We had a problem with Pacifica, despite being assured that when we bought our car insurance we had cover at home for every eventuality.
We were packed and starting off for a trip to UK and the windscreen wipers would not work. It was pouring down. I called Pacifica only to be told that we were not covered for that and because it was a Sunday they could not get anybody to help us. We were advised to use a very dangerous road, a route for lorries avoiding lorries paying tolls, for forty kilometres from our home and then we would be covered. All this without windscreen wipers, so we could have been arrested by the Gendarmerie!!
We have left Pacifica and taken all our business away from them. We now use Cluny Mutuelle. Have you a Mutuelle for all insurance in your nearest town? If you have I would strongly advise that you use them. You can go into the office and deal directly and we paid less premiums for more cover.
Had an accident in uk end of march, UK driver accepted full responsibility, unfortunately trashed rear wheel an tyre and had to replace it. assessor place a VGE on car , problems with spare parts just got it back now struggling to get VGE lifted. Pacifica are not responding to reimbursement of my essential costs in UK. No reply to emails, phone calls are dropped after 6 mins.
Will be changing all my inusrance now, Couldn’t get anyone to speak english, so employed a translator who did occasionally get through. Britline were unable to help
Same here Pacifica are horrendous. I had an car accident 5 week’s ago z wrote it off. 3 week’s to get a replacement car and that only for a week. There expert assessed my car lower by 40% market value and no response are returning calls or emails after 3 week’s ringing every day 10 time’s to be cut off after 7min. No response but the automatic we have your email and will be in touch.
I’ve used all my holidays and now risk loosing my job, which will then roll on and effect my mortgage commitment
Reading this type of experience does worry me! We have Pacifica insure everything of value, ie our two cars and house and we benefit from significant discounts from bundling all our insurance through them. However it took me quite some time to understand that Britline are authorised to write all their business on their behalf, ie that I can speak in English to Britline about premiums, coverage etc. However anything to do with claims has to be dealt with by Pacifica directly, which based on feedback here and earlier, fills me with some concern. That said, the only time (touching wood) that we have made any sort of claim, for a shattered windscreen from a stone thrown up by white van man driving too fast, they paid up (100%) very promptly, with virtually no quibbling at all.
I use an insurance agent who deals with our claims himself.
Some years ago a storm cut off our electricity for some days and stuff in the freezer defrosted. The agent said an expert would arrive but a photograph of the spoiled goods would be helpful.
The freezer was full of the usual stuff - left over meals, half eaten food, home made curries and soups. I took a photo of each item, gave it a description and estimated a price.
I ended up with 5 pages of photos with description and price (completely picked out of the blue to the nearest cent) finishing with a total of around 500 euros. I gave this to the expert.
He sat down, looked at all the information and shook his head.
"Mr Bennett you don’t understand. This is France. You ask for 500 euros, then I offer you 300 euros and we settle for 400 euros. How can I argue with any of this? "
He then got up to leave but smiled and turned to me and asked "Do you mind if I keep a copy of this? My colleagues will never believe it "
House and car insurance were actually cheaper (€200 p.a. for the house) but then, for reasons, we were previously with Allianz who aren’t renowned for being good value.
As this thread shows, the challenge comes when you have to claim and I’m fully of the expectation that I’ll need to fight to get anything out of any insurer so I want an office to go to.
