[lsjey]

Here is what I've gleaned on this topic when I bought insurance for my Honda city:

1. Car manufacturers and/ Dealers negotiate a rate card with specified Insurance companies. Usually, when you buy a premium vehicle, this rate card is very important from the standpoint of seamless claims.
2. Because the rate card is pre-approved and agreed to between dealers/car manufactures and Insurance companies, estimates, and sanctioning of work is smooth. Hence, better experience in claims.
3. If you get insurance from outside, typically the insurance company does not customize the rate card for your specific car model/make. They tend to go with a low rate card. Hence, lesser premium. This results in hassles during claims.

Yes, there is nexus between, car dealers and Insurance companies. I suggest the following:

1. Ask for and get the contact detail of the Insurance company sales rep. Talk to that guy and negotiate.
2. Ensure that your tariff discount is at least 70% or more. This is the discount on your basic premium. This will be a percent of your IDV.
3. Ensure that you ask around for add-ons. These add-ons are usually not discounted.
4. Ensure that you cash in your NCB.

I'm not an expert. All these points I learnt through interactions with dealers and Insurance sales reps.

In summary, I suggest taking insurance through Car manufacturer/Dealer approved Insurance company. This helps. But do negotiate hard.

Regards,
lsjey

[Quoter]

What the dealer is saying (not honouring cashless claims if insurance not taken from him) is not allowed as per regulations and you can tell the dealer that he is going to be reported to IRDAI for forcing you to buy insurance from him. Dealers are no longer outside insurance regulatory ambit and each of them have to be registered with IRDAI for selling insurance.
At the time of claim, all that matters is whether the dealer is empaneled with the insurance company for cashless claims or not. Even the dealer will not care where you got the insurance from as long as it covers the claim and the workshop is authorized with the insurance service provider.

[sharc_biker]

This is a common scare tactic by greedy dealers. Everytime we have bought cars, this happens and we've called their bluff everytime.

We've even had the financing bank force us to opt for their insurance if we wanted a reduced rate of interest. We finally did only after they matched the lowest quote we received outside.

There was a minor claim with our Q5 within 5 months of purchase. Had not opted for the dealer's insurance quote which was more than 2x the outside price. The claim was still processed seamlessly and was cashless.

The sales team which employs the scare tactics is usually different from the service team that usually processes claims. As long as the outside insurance is from a reputed provider, there shouldn't be any issue.

[car-dent]

The job of sales team is to sell you the insurance with whatver tactics they can use. They put out all sort of stupid theories to scare especially the first time buyers.

When you go for repairs the service teams job is to repair your car irrespective of who pays for it- the insurance or you. They hardly care if you had taken insurance from them or outside.

They have already lost your sales business, it would be foolish for them to lose your sevice business too.

We have always taken insurance through our own agent and have never had any problems with claims.

[Artyom]

Today being a Bharat Bandh everything in Punjab is pretty much closed so will wait till tomorrow and will ask them to match the quote that we are getting from outside and then if they still don't budge will finally buy it from outside. No doubt about that.

[channelv]

Adding my 2 cents here:

In case one is buying a new car, he should get his NCB transferred to the new vehicle. This allows one to save up to 50% on "Own damage" part and could be substantial savings.

NCB is linked to person and not to car.
It is also not necessary to sell your existing car to get an NCB transfer (but yes you do need pay a bit on old policy where you had availed NCB discount)

For Fortuner, this resulted in savings of 37k on dealer's quote of 152k for a friend. he just had to pay 500/- for his small hatch back's premium.

[Sran]

Maruti is notorious for this insurance shenanigan. The dealer operated service center will outright deny entertaining any customer with regard to cashless claim if not purchased insurance through maruti insurance broking. The maruti insurance broking will also give lower IDV in comparison from next year.

The insurance companies also accept this fact and both will tell you this. However in case of maruti the insurance purchased from elsewhere will provide cashless settlement on non dealer operated ASS. Unfortunately except maruti no one else has non dealer operated ASS.

Icici used to provide cashless settlement for many other manufacturers, check them out. It was one of the main reasons they got foothold in the industry which was ruled by national and oriental insurance.

Insurance settlement does not take ages but yes it is a slow process, it may take a month. When surveyor agress with the work, one settles the bill and submit the bill along with a cancelled cheque to the company. It may take a visit or two to speed up the process.

If the difference is 1-2 thousand like in my case then go with dealer broking as I did but if the difference is more than that then get your insurance from elsewhere.

[Aviator_guy]

I could purchase insurance (zero dep, RTI, engine protection, RSA, consumable, key loss) for Creta SX IVT for 50k from ICICI Lombard. Had a quote of 38k from Royal Sundaram but decided to stick to ICICI. This still saved me cool 30k vs. the dealer quote which did not have RTI add-on.

[neil.jericho]

Artyom, I have had one insurance claim for my car which was bought in Bangalore but sent for an insurance claim in Cochin, as someone knocked my car while I was driving down to Kerala. At that time, I had zero depreciation insurance and the insurance company had a cashless tieup with Vision Honda (Cochin). So I didnt expect any issues with processing the claim but the dealership employee responsible for all insurance claims, kept insisting that I pay them the amount as they dont have a cashless tieup with the insurance company. I spoke to the insurance company and they told me that I dont need to pay for the parts as they have a cashless tieup and hence, will take care of the payments and processing. They told me that the guy I was speaking to from the dealership is the one who corresponds with them and everyone knows that there was a cashless tieup in place. I listened to the insurance company and didnt pay out of my pocket.

Dealerships will try all sorts of underhanded tricks when it comes to selling insurance or insurance claims, but at the end of the day, if there is a cashless facility, you will be able to avail it, even if the dealership guys try to make things difficult.

[abhishek_hch]

Anyone who sells insurance and also provides services related to it can not discriminate in services provided on basis of where the policy was brought from. This rule has been made precisely to discourage the kind of thing that's happening to you, else all car OEMs and/or dealers will say buy from us at our price or no cashless service.

I would suggest that you ask the dealer to put this in writing. If he does that, then forward the mail with your complaint to IRDA, Hyundai, insurance company that you are being offered insurance from and Secretary, Financial Services, GOI. The dealer would mostly be aware of this and won't give it in writing, just go ahead and write the mail. You should get a good response and it should be sorted.

[car-dent]

Originally Posted by Sran

Maruti is notorious for this insurance shenanigan. The dealer operated service center will outright deny entertaining any customer with regard to cashless claim if not purchased insurance through maruti insurance broking.

Not Always. We have claimed Cashless insurance for my S cross as well as Baleno through the dealer we bought the cars from. We had taken our own insurance and not even once the service centre told me that cashless is not available. Infact they were hardly bothered about it.
Like i said earlier, if they did this, it would be very foolish for them to lose the service business as they have already lost the sales business.

[dsuman]

For insurance needs during new car purchases it has been discussed time and again that dealer quotes are way higher than outside quotes from same Insurance Provider and same add-ons. Everybody suggests fighting hard with dealers to match the quote or buy outside.

This is a very important topic and also the one which saves a lot of moolah. However only a few knows the process to buy an outside insurance themselves for a brand new unregistered car (My understanding is TR or PR is generated by RTO only with valid insurance).

Recently I bought two cars and on both occassions I was given the option to buy from outside. On the day of billing, my Tata dealer even asked me if he should give me the required details so I can buy insurance.

I did not know the process to do it myself, so I asked them to go ahead through showroom insurance. Some members seems to have bought from outside. Maybe someone can create a thread on how to accomplish this activity. If Forum rules allow it should be a part of Help Articles available on Team Bhp homepage.

Note: I could find threads on Hypothecation removal, NOC request etc but could not find any threads related to Buying Insurance from outside for new cars.

[Aviator_guy]

Originally Posted by dsuman

For insurance needs during new car purchases it has been discussed time and again that dealer quotes are way higher than outside quotes from same Insurance Provider and same add-ons. Everybody suggests fighting hard with dealers to match the quote or buy outside.

This is a very important topic and also the one which saves a lot of moolah. However only a few knows the process to buy an outside insurance themselves for a brand new unregistered car (My understanding is TR or PR is generated by RTO only with valid insurance).

Recently I bought two cars and on both occassions I was given the option to buy from outside. On the day of billing, my Tata dealer even asked me if he should give me the required details so I can buy insurance.

I did not know the process to do it myself, so I asked them to go ahead through showroom insurance. Some members seems to have bought from outside. Maybe someone can create a thread on how to accomplish this activity. If Forum rules allow it should be a part of Help Articles available on Team Bhp homepage.

Note: I could find threads on Hypothecation removal, NOC request etc but could not find any threads related to Buying Insurance from outside for new cars.

For a brand new car, all you need is ex. Showroom price, engine number, chassis number, which RTO (city and state is fine), insurance start date(which can be the date you purchase insurance), Hypothecation bank name (if applicable). You should call the insurance company directly and share these details over phone or email and they will generate quote and payment link.

I did it for my brand new Creta yesterday with these details.

[dsuman]

Originally Posted by Aviator_guy

For a brand new car, all you need is ex. Showroom price, engine number, chassis number, which RTO (city and state is fine), insurance start date(which can be the date you purchase insurance), Hypothecation bank name (if applicable). You should call the insurance company directly and share these details over phone or email and they will generate quote and payment link.

I did it for my brand new Creta yesterday with these details.

Thanks. One more query. In case of Finance do we need any letter from Financier or will just the name suffice.

[Aviator_guy]

Originally Posted by dsuman

Thanks. One more query. In case of Finance do we need any letter from Financier or will just the name suffice.

Just the name is enough. In rare scenario, they may ask for bank letter which you get at the time of signing the loan documents. Among many companies I enquired with, only Royal Sundaram asked for this document. Icici/Bajaj/HDFC didn't ask for any documents.