Frustrating claim experience with AAMI

Just want to share my really, really bad experience with AAMI and hope no other person will experience this any longer.

My car had an accident on 16 June 2016 and wasn’t drivable (the battery disconnected by the police). I contacted AAMI on-site and my car was towed to a repairer on the same day. Then the frustrating waiting game began. After exact 83 days up to today, 7 September 2016, I still don’t know when my car will be back!

AAMI offers an option to add 14-day hire car to a policy. There must be a reason for this policy. I would think 14 days should be the ordinary waiting time. But in this case, I was totally wrong. Originally, the date 27 July 2016 was set that I could get my car back. Though this date was already well beyond 14 days, I wasn’t too frustrated as I expected to get my car back on a known date.

Since then, this date 27 July 2016 has been postponed or even cancelled numerous times, 1 week here, several days there. I can’t remember how many times I’ve called the car repairer and AAMI, at least 20 times. Until this morning, the repairer called me and said it DID NOT know when my car will be fixed! It’s waiting for the last part, being something like air conditioner to be delivered. I subsequently called AAMI and got just a little more detail. The day after tomorrow would be the day. The date has been postponed or cancelled so many times. How can I put any confidence on the date advised by AAMI?

An ordinary car (2007 Honda Civic) can’t be fixed in 83 days. This sounds just ridiculous. And AAMI never ever follow up promptly. I can’t understand why. This waiting game has caused huge inconvenience to my daily life. I had to spend more than double time on the bus. I can’t send or collect my kids. My wife has to bear this all by herself with our other car. I had to cancel my dental check appointment twice. I had to cancel a number of social or professional activities.

I must admit that AAMI did everything perfectly within its legal right. There's no clause talking about the wating time in the product disclosure document. But in my eyes, AAMI appears not interested to care for its customers. It even didn’t promptly follow up with this outstanding claim. And every time I called AAMI, I was forced to listen to boring music just because the AAMI person needed to call the repairer. Why can’t AAMI offer call-back service?

OK. This is the story, my bad experience with AAMI. Lesson learned? I would look for an insurance company that provides hire car option until the car is fixed. Sorry AAMI, you’re out.

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