[naveen.raju]

Guys, before posting this thread, I had received my policy and refund. I just pointed out my harrowing experience.

My last communication with Bajaj Allianz (Mr Suraj) was on April 14th. After that, no updates from them.

This thread went live yesterday at 6am. Exactly at 9am, I started getting calls from Bajaj Allianz (Mr Suraj, some random numbers marked as Bajaj Allianz in Truecaller). I couldn't pick Suraj's call as I was on an another call. Later on, I talked to few women and asked me whether I received my policy since they saw that I had raised a complaint (This thread on TeamBHP is what they meant).

At night Mr Jerome calls me up (the man who promised me that he would personally solve this issue but disappeared on 31st March). This guy talks in such a way that you think he will do an amazing job in resolving the issue. The man who doesn't even respond to mails/calls doesn't fit to be a grievance officer.

Here's the man who said he will do anything to resolve. Gives me his personal mobile number and email. But no response (had copied him on these mails):


He mentioned that they all saw my thread here and called up to check on the status of the policy. I said I had to run behind these guys to get it and told him that it's hard for a customer to believe that there's a technical issue for more than a month. He asked me to give him one more chance.
His exact words were - "I personally will be like your relationship manager. For your next policy, just contact me and I will give you the best price and issue the policy. I know this time you had a very bad experience and I am sorry for this. Even if you have a bad experience next time, then I wont ask you try us again". Aren't you supposed to say "I will make sure that you wont experience something similar next time?" or something in similar lines?

Anyhow, no idea if I will still get calls from them. They only respond during such instances.

[libranof1987]

I'm just trying to understand what their objective is, in doing whatever mischief they're up to. Find that one out of 10/20/10 people that just gives up running around for refund. Or that donkey who forgets to check whether the policy is actually the renewed one?

Is this actually worth losing reputation, or worse, getting stuck with someone who actually drags their rotten behind to court. Ridiculous. Of course, companies have been caught with their pants down with far pettier cheating but BA isn't a fly-by-night operator.

On second thought, is it possible that a third party (outsourced by BA for sales) promised a lower premium that BA couldn't honour and hence this tamasha?

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by roadrunner_nv

I belong to a biking community too and unsurprisingly, you’ll find such “influencers” with feedback about Acko, Digit, ICICI Lombard, HDFC ergo, Reliance and Bajaj Allianz. They all have their own marks of inadequate service, claims experiences across. Not just private players, some from the public sector too (mostly claims related).

roadrunner_nv, the gentleman I mentioned in my previous post is not an "influencer". He is well known in the motorcycling community that I am a part of. Thats it.

I apologize if my earlier post was confusing.

Originally Posted by roadrunner_nv

It would be unwise to keep slinging mud on such forums. Don’t tell me that you never experienced deficiency of any sort anywhere else..be it a dealership, service, telecom or internet provider or even your neighbourhood hotel or bar

My own HDFC ergo policy took over six months for a simple change of detail. Not just that, it also costed me as my car was towed away during a visit to the HDFC office

What remains to be seen if if the company in question manages to help him out. Better late than never.

Well, you can always report Naveen's post and request the mods to delete this thread if you feel that it is unwise for customers to point out systematic failures in service from an insurance company, double billing and delays in processing refunds.

Also, the reason that Naveen has posted this thread is for others to understand how Bajaj-Allianz Insurance has not been supporting him so far. And we have seen that it is not an isolated issue.

Originally Posted by locusjag

I understand where you're coming from.

I'm saying pretty much the same thing you've said but in a different light. Their systems are the root cause of this mess and it's ruining their brand image. Of course where you've differentiated your response is in saying that the customers won't care. And that's 100% right on your 0art.

But all I'm saying is - it's not some vicious scam. I can recognize a production bug in these systems and I think I see one here. That's it. It's most likely to be an innocuous bug behind the scenes.

locusjag, yes, there is likely to be an issue with the software. But there is so much more to it than that. The software that is being used is only as good as the organization that has signed off on it and is using it on a daily basis. As we have seen on this thread, Naveen is not the first person to suffer from these malpractices. So that brings me to 2 questions
- How did the Bajaj-Allianz team sign off on this faulty software in the first place?
- Assuming that it was a genuine oversight from everyone concerned, how has the Bajaj-Allianz user team not flagged this as a serious issue for an immediate fix? Being such a massive player in the market, if the business users are not able to identify these massive issues and get the IT support team to fix it ASAP, then this isnt a well run business at all.

Even if the business users are not capable enough to identify the issues (just an assumption to further the discussion, Im not suggesting anything here), then their in house IT division / third part software services provider, that is supporting the application would have immediately identified that there has been a spike in different complaints related to the issues that Naveen has highlighted. That is part of any weekly, monthly and quarterly review process that is followed. These numbers will be highlighted because it will impact their ticket counts and SLAs, and in turn their staffing and costs. So, there is no way that Bajaj-Allianz doesnt know about these issues. (P.S - I know that you know that this is how the IT world work, Im just posting this for others to understand what we are discussing).

I will not give Bajaj Allianz a clean chit on this. Its their reputation. Its their business operations. If this problem has been going on for quite some time (it looks like it has), then it is pretty awful.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by naveen.raju

His exact words were - "I personally will be like your relationship manager. For your next policy, just contact me and I will give you the best price and issue the policy. I know this time you had a very bad experience and I am sorry for this. if you have a bad experience next time, then I wont ask you try us again".

I'm sure many would have posted their negative experiences with service providers on other social media platforms, but only a fraction of those would have elicited a response like this.

Very simple - these guys know the % of complaints where they'd need to put in "special" efforts to do damage control and buttering. For me, every customer must be treated equally, and going by what was said, it'd be interesting to see if they can afford to have "relationship managers" for every single customer.

[sydras]

I've been insuring one of my two vehicles with Bharti-AXA Motor Insurance for years now. I've had a half a dozen fender benders over the past ten years and each time, the payout was done without fuss. Also, agent based and (later) online renewal was a simple and prompt affair.

However, I had a similar bad experience when renewing with them back in 2018. I was directed to a special payment link with additional discount provided by their customer service agent. Once payment was made, I did not hear from him again. After several days of heated emails sent to their customer care and getting response from different agents, I finally received my new policy a week after my old policy had lapsed. I almost thought I'd been duped. I made sure to switch the insurer for my 2nd vehicle to Royal Sundaram after that even though their premium was slightly higher. Bharti-AXA has now lost out on two years of insurance premiums and will continue to lose out due to their negligence that one time.

After this experience, I've stopped the practice of calling their customer care and negotiating for a discount on the premium. I simply renew online and am assured of proper processing of my renewal.

W.r.t. insurers mentioned in this thread, over time, I've only heard bad things about ICICI Lombard and HDFC Ergo. It makes me believe that banking entities don't know how to do insurance. Years ago, I used to hear good things about Bajaj Allianz but always felt that their premiums were too high.

I renewed one of my vehicles once with TATA AIG once and that was a harrowing experience as there was a mistake in the policy document and I received a correction addendum after almost 10 months of follow up. All this while, no one had the courtesy to call and explain to me why a policy once issued cannot be corrected(IRDA rule).

In my limited experience, I can say that Royal Sundaram and Bharti AXA are generally ok and I will never consider Bajaj Allianz, TATA AIG or any banking entity for my motor insurance needs.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

locusjag, yes, there is likely to be an issue with the software. But there is so much more to it than that. The software that is being used is only as good as the organization that has signed off on it and is using it on a daily basis.
....
Being such a massive player in the market, if the business users are not able to identify these massive issues and get the IT support team to fix it ASAP, then this isnt a well run business at all.

Absolutely. Any IT guy would love to work on Bajaj Allianz's IT support team. They seem to have the best sinecure in the world where the leadership doesn't care about production bugs

[vijay_jambu]

For close to 10 years I’ve been a customer of Bajaj Allianz for our Skoda Octavia and the only time I faced issue was some time in 2013 when I went through dealer during renewal for the “preferred insurance partner” crap wherein the insurance contact person of dealership delayed to give the policy document and when I finally received it I saw it had typos which was never rectified during the tenure.
But post this incident I never had any issues with Bajaj Allianz during any of their renewals which I used to get it done myself through their website.
Now why I’m being loyal to it? It’s because sometime in the year 2017 my car stalled 20/25 kms away from my house due to failed alternator and I used Bajaj Allianz’s RSA to get it towed to my house. Although it took a couple of hours for the flatbed to arrive, I was impressed for the fact that customer RC are was responsive and inspite of their policy which says RSA will drop the car at the nearest Authorized service station, the customer service executive without battling an eyelid agreed to get the car dropped to my house which was 20kms away instead of (an infamous) Skoda service center which was hardly 5 kms away.
I guess real experience will be during claim process which “touchwood” I’m yet to experience.

P.S - I’m no where professionally connected to Bajaj Allianz, just shared my experience as a customer

[sara.ramli]

My Figo's Bajaj Allianz issued insurance was up for renewal tomorrow. I have been using their website directly for renewal for the past few years. After having seen this thread, became really skeptical if I should attempt renewal with them this time. Checked my past mails and realized that last year, I too did not get the insurance copy emailed automatically, unlike for renewals done in the previous years. Given the Covid lockdowns, I did not take the car out for a few months after renewal and when I had to, I guess I requested for the soft-copy to be emailed and got it promptly. May be the 'technical glitch'/'delay in policy generation' was prevalent then too at the time of renewal and it went unnoticed.

Still, decided to try the renewal with them today. The renewal and payment process went through without any major hiccups. Couple of glitches noted:
1. At the renewal step, the adjusted IDV was not reflecting in the Policy Details pane on the right hand side
2. Post payment, the success page has a 'Download Policy' link but it was broken (with literally a javascript:; statement for the technically inclined).

It took a few minutes and a logout+login for the new policy to appear in the 'My Policies' section in their customer portal. The email id against the new policy was empty (though it is on record for the previous policy and also was prompted to enter the same during the renewal process). Had to manually update it against the new policy and then request for the policy document to be emailed. Got the policy document in a few minutes (with the right IDV).

[naveen.raju]

Since I have been their customer for few years now, I casually mailed the contact person with whom I had the ordeal to check on the insurance quote for my Creta. Don't know whether it was my last episode, their quote was more than double the quote compared to other providers. I declined their offer and bid goodbye.

Now I started getting calls from Bajaj (I know these are customer support executives who just randomly call based on the call list that they receive), but seems like they are desperate. Wish they had shown such a commitment couple of months back and given my insurance on time. I didn't want to run behind this so simply marked their number as spam and thought let them run behind me this time. Such a desperation for money!

It's goodbye Bajaj Allianz!