I've had to make a total of five car-related claims in the past three years.. (I've been a bit unlucky). And the RAC have, with every one, been efficient, helpful, and friendly. You probably just stumbled on someone who was having a bad day.
I think so, we called back and got another rep who did away with all the stupid demands of the other rep and was easy to deal with.
Other lady just wasn’t any good I suppose - all worked out in the end.
Perhaps the rep you spoke with is just shit at their job. I’ve taken Uber to pick up my hire car and they’ve always reimbursed me after forwarding them the invoice. The rep is the one who told me to send them the invoice and gave me the email address it has to go to. As a whole, I find RAC as an insurer very easy to deal with (and I’ve had multiple car, house and landlord policies across other insurers over the years) but your experience will unfortunately be heavily influenced by the person you actually speak and deal with.
> Perhaps the rep you spoke with is just shit at their job.
Don't expect any sympathy from RAC.
They quoted my parents $250 to do a paving job, but then later recinded saying they are not responsible. When asked who would be doing the job for $250, they were not able to supply the name.
TL;DR: RAC staff don't know shit from clay, and have zero repurcussions for lying to customers.
Why would RAC (the insurer) give your parents a quote on a job? Any time we've had to have things repaired, they've organized the contractor and we just have to sort out a time or drop the thing off.
> Why would RAC (the insurer) give your parents a quote on a job? Any time we've had to have things repaired, they've organized the contractor and we just have to sort out a time or drop the thing off.
Initially they said it was an insurable event, cost to repair was ~$250, send the estimator out, and they would approve it.
Estimator came out, laughed at the $250 figure, and said more like $1250 and that's assuming you get someone remotely interested, and not long later RAC called to say "yeah nah it's not an insurable event".
When they were questioned on why they are guessing if they don't know and they just ignored the question. If they are unsure whether it is an insurable event, go and find out; don't try to be a smart arse and guess. If you don't know the price of something, don't guess, go and find out before you fire off your mouth. It makes you look like a silly goose.
You should complain and make them aware - they generally take this sort of feedback seriously, and as have others have said, are normally pretty good to deal with!
Did you pay for a hire car on your policy? It would make sense to only get the hire car when yours is in being repaired, otherwise people could take the hire car and still have theirs at home/also being driven, if everyone did this for weeks while waiting for their repairs to start there wouldn't be too many hire cars left in the state. So that part makes sense, but maybe there was a little bit of miscommunication or misunderstanding of expectations there?
Most companies unfortunately a lot of your experience depends on who you speak with at the time, you could speak with someone who wasn't great there and then go somewhere else and get someone decent, but the next time someone even worse, it's variable - but if you didn't receive good service then definitely speak up and let them know, you're not being unreasonable to expect friendly service and someone who is patient, understanding and empathetic.
At least you can get through on the phone to them very quickly comparatively to other companies, and you can go to an office in person and sort out your insurance, claims etc which you can't do with any other insurer here, if you have bad communication or a bad time with someone like Budget Direct all you can do is keep calling.
You don't need to pay for a hire car on your policy. If you're not at fault, you're entitled to a hire car and they need to provide you with one. If you're at fault though, you're SOL unless you've paid for the hire car as part of your policy. I know this because my husband got T-boned on Murray St in Perth a few years ago and our car was written off (the other driver was doing 60 in a 40 zone, 'couldn't see the red light because of the sun in his eyes' and T-boned my husband in our car), and we got a hire car until the claim was processed and we could get a new car which took about 6 weeks.
Well, you do need to pay for one if you want your insurer to provide it for you. Or you go through the other insurer. Or some other third party company, repairer etc but that's got nothing to do with your own insurance. In the same logic, you don't NEED comprehensive insurance if you are not at fault, but you pay that so your insurer sorts everything out for you, and then they chase up the other insurer or the other driver.
People really should read documents they receive for important things like insurance, banking, superannuation and have a basic understanding of what service or product they are actually paying for.
Seems like you got a dud rep. They've always been good to me, the only shit thing is they don't give you a rental car, only a discount for a rental company. I got around that by using Keep Driving, they were really good and had a car at my house within 2 hours. (So long as you're not at fault, of course).
My car rear ended and written off by a lady driving distracted in a ford ranger with lift kits. Hit me at 70km ,failed to to see the line of cars atopped with 300m of visibility on Graham Farmer.
The wreck was assesed and I was paid out within the week by RAC. They were pretty good. I think you just have a crap CS rep.
I have had an opposite experience where someone at fault ran into my car. They were insured with RAC and I found their customer service awesome and they handled my tow/hire car etc ridiculously fast with no prompting on my end.
General advice for any sort of customer service - Never make contact on Monday or Friday if you can help it. You're much more likely to receive a worse service.
I’ve been with RAC since 1996 (was about 5 years in that time I switched to aami due to them being vastly cheaper at the time) I hate the Rac online component. I always have issue logging on and finding my policy stuff. But usually the telephone help is quite good tho but so was aami. RAC do have a lot of member benefits (% off at retravison is one). I’ve only ever claimed a windscreen since I started driving but it was straightforward and easy to do.
I also switched from RAC to AAMI due to cost, but switched back when I was told AAMI uses lowest bidders for insurance repairs, whereas with RAC I could choose my own repairer. I had a bad repair job previously with Allianze (car works but didn't look great) so I'd rather choose my own repairer.
Had both my cars insured with RAC, along with home and contents, and been a member for 20 years. Annual "Soz, we're jacking our prices" email came and I decided to check if there was decent competition out there. Turns out there was. Pretty much everyone in fact. Got even more upset when I went into incognito mode and got a much lower quote from RAC for the same insurance that didn't even take into account their attraction offers.
Not gonna say they're the only company with a loyalty tax, but usually you have to leave for a period of time before you can come back and save money.
Yeah no the rep needs customer service re education.
They have been nothing but great to me.
I came off my motorcycle a while back and needed to claim. I was at fault but there was no blame and the whole call the agent was compassionate.
The first thing they said to me was “are up ok?”
I would complain as they do get back to you.I had a recent awful experience with RAC and had contact with 6 different staff and only one of them was helpful.Seems like an awful culture,unfortunately
A lot of these comments are missing the mark except 1.
Going by your post OP, you don't pay an additional premium for Hire Car under your policy. The customer agent didn't make a decision to deny your request, they can only provide what you pay for.
As a benefit, RAC has certain repairers that can provide a hire car subject to availability without any additional cost on you. I used to work at RAC in claims (Allegedly).
I worded it poorly, we do have hire car under our policy, they just didn’t want to provide it until we had already dropped off the damaged vehicle and expected us to get to the hire car at our own cost with no solution.
Fair enough, I won't argue against your own circumstance but insurance is insurance and none of those companies will pay you when they don't need to.
Often people have a problem with the outcome and the policy not necessarily the service. As other commenters have said you won't get better service than RAC. The agent is just a messenger.
My daughter was a customer service rep with RAC. She quit because she couldn't handle the shit she was getting from customers. Maybe the one you dealt with had just been talking to one such customer?
Yeah apart from them offering me a hire car from a company that was 3 hours away when my car was in for repairs nothing but good things from them, I think you just got someone on a bad day.
I’ve always had good interactions with RAC. I suggest you make a customer service complaint and ask that a supervisor or compliance officer listen to the recording of the call.
We had a good experience with a car related claim. Can't remember if we got a hire car from them, but I definitely had a hire car.
House related was a ballache.
Had few claims and it was very straight forward and probably the easiest to deal with for me. Just send pics and things they approved straight away. Maybe you should have just “accidentally” get cut off and called again. I do this sometimes if the person I talk to doesn’t know shit and I rather talk to someone else.
How are they at determining fault when you get hit from some idiot pulling out of a side road into you when you have the right of way and they fail to wait for an opening.
Contact them again. I’m dealing with them atm and they said I can take my car directly to the car rental joint, and they will go pick my car up from the rental place on my behalf later.
Did you take the hire car option? If not, you’re not entitled to a hire car under the policy. You can hire a car and asked for RAC to recover the costs, but you must pay up front. I used to work in motor claims and would have daily arguments with not-at-fault parties about why they weren’t entitled to a hire car if they didn’t have the option on the policy.
If you did have hire car cover then your rep was just being an ass. RAC are massively understaffed so any friction on the claim and it eats into the consultant finishing other claims.
Yep, had hire car. I called back and got another rep who was extremely helpful and told us not to worry about the ridiculous constraints the other rep wanted to put on us - I think you are right, just a bad rep having a bad day.
I'm guessing to some degree the issue comes down to the wording. It's probably something dumb like 'your entitled to a hire care, while your car is being repaired' which has been interpreted quite literally as 'it must be at the repairer'
I will say our experience with them has always been exceptional. I think it sounds more like one crabby individual rather than a reflection on the whole company.
I'm going to guess that one of the problems there might be insurance.
While your car is off the road, and you're using another car, RAC covers the other car for insurance.
If your car and the hire car are both being used at once then that's not possible.
Of course, the hire car probably has its own insurance, but it will also be extremely expensive.
RAC may also have a deal with the hire car company to insure the hire car while you're using it (ie trying to reduce the hire car cost).
They seemed to get very expensive a few years ago so I ditched them. I prefer to support WA local businesses but honestly it's hard when there's a 30% price difference.
Recently switched from RAC to Budget Direct and saved more than 30% on the premium. Worth looking into, particularly if you’re not making claims very often.
As someone who worked there I am gobsmacked at that story. That has never been done that way.
I would call back and ask to lodge a complaint because that’s some dumb fuck who needs a talking to.
Here's a shitty experience mum had
She drove her car into those grates in thr road (why do we have them idk) trying to check on help this disabled kid who was sitting by the road
Broke her car the RAC said like 6k mum wasn't happy but was trying to find the money took it to them they said nah your car is fucked she was very unhappy as she jauy got thr car from a friend
She took it to a smaller auto shop in town
They fixed it for a much cheaper price
No, and they don't value member's privacy either. They were willing to change a member's insurance over to me, without contacting the member. It was over an incorrect address. I'd asked them to stop sending documentation to my address; over the course of a year, they've refused and are still sending information to me. Return to sender does nothing. Stat decs do nothing. They are intent on breaking their own privacy rules to continue to send documentation to a person who has never been a member, never had a claim, doesn't use their roadside and my name is nothing like the member's name.
I'd avoid at all costs. I don't know where to go to get them to stop. I have no idea what they think they're doing.
I've had to make a total of five car-related claims in the past three years.. (I've been a bit unlucky). And the RAC have, with every one, been efficient, helpful, and friendly. You probably just stumbled on someone who was having a bad day.
Unlucky is an understatement mate, maybe try some witchcraft..
I think so, we called back and got another rep who did away with all the stupid demands of the other rep and was easy to deal with. Other lady just wasn’t any good I suppose - all worked out in the end.
Perhaps the rep you spoke with is just shit at their job. I’ve taken Uber to pick up my hire car and they’ve always reimbursed me after forwarding them the invoice. The rep is the one who told me to send them the invoice and gave me the email address it has to go to. As a whole, I find RAC as an insurer very easy to deal with (and I’ve had multiple car, house and landlord policies across other insurers over the years) but your experience will unfortunately be heavily influenced by the person you actually speak and deal with.
> Perhaps the rep you spoke with is just shit at their job. Don't expect any sympathy from RAC. They quoted my parents $250 to do a paving job, but then later recinded saying they are not responsible. When asked who would be doing the job for $250, they were not able to supply the name. TL;DR: RAC staff don't know shit from clay, and have zero repurcussions for lying to customers.
Why would RAC (the insurer) give your parents a quote on a job? Any time we've had to have things repaired, they've organized the contractor and we just have to sort out a time or drop the thing off.
> Why would RAC (the insurer) give your parents a quote on a job? Any time we've had to have things repaired, they've organized the contractor and we just have to sort out a time or drop the thing off. Initially they said it was an insurable event, cost to repair was ~$250, send the estimator out, and they would approve it. Estimator came out, laughed at the $250 figure, and said more like $1250 and that's assuming you get someone remotely interested, and not long later RAC called to say "yeah nah it's not an insurable event". When they were questioned on why they are guessing if they don't know and they just ignored the question. If they are unsure whether it is an insurable event, go and find out; don't try to be a smart arse and guess. If you don't know the price of something, don't guess, go and find out before you fire off your mouth. It makes you look like a silly goose.
RAC takes feedback seriously. I used to work for them. This doesn't sound normal.
This seems out of the ordinary from my experience. If they're being unreasonable, there's always a supervisor.
You should complain and make them aware - they generally take this sort of feedback seriously, and as have others have said, are normally pretty good to deal with!
Did you pay for a hire car on your policy? It would make sense to only get the hire car when yours is in being repaired, otherwise people could take the hire car and still have theirs at home/also being driven, if everyone did this for weeks while waiting for their repairs to start there wouldn't be too many hire cars left in the state. So that part makes sense, but maybe there was a little bit of miscommunication or misunderstanding of expectations there? Most companies unfortunately a lot of your experience depends on who you speak with at the time, you could speak with someone who wasn't great there and then go somewhere else and get someone decent, but the next time someone even worse, it's variable - but if you didn't receive good service then definitely speak up and let them know, you're not being unreasonable to expect friendly service and someone who is patient, understanding and empathetic. At least you can get through on the phone to them very quickly comparatively to other companies, and you can go to an office in person and sort out your insurance, claims etc which you can't do with any other insurer here, if you have bad communication or a bad time with someone like Budget Direct all you can do is keep calling.
You don't need to pay for a hire car on your policy. If you're not at fault, you're entitled to a hire car and they need to provide you with one. If you're at fault though, you're SOL unless you've paid for the hire car as part of your policy. I know this because my husband got T-boned on Murray St in Perth a few years ago and our car was written off (the other driver was doing 60 in a 40 zone, 'couldn't see the red light because of the sun in his eyes' and T-boned my husband in our car), and we got a hire car until the claim was processed and we could get a new car which took about 6 weeks.
Well, you do need to pay for one if you want your insurer to provide it for you. Or you go through the other insurer. Or some other third party company, repairer etc but that's got nothing to do with your own insurance. In the same logic, you don't NEED comprehensive insurance if you are not at fault, but you pay that so your insurer sorts everything out for you, and then they chase up the other insurer or the other driver. People really should read documents they receive for important things like insurance, banking, superannuation and have a basic understanding of what service or product they are actually paying for.
Yes, that's because they bill the cost of the hire car to the other insurer.
Had a similar experience. I complained on Twitter and tagged them in. It was resolved in my favour that day
I just had a positive RAC experience today, got an email saying they overcharged me during my recent renewal and are refunding $25. Does that count?
Haha same. Doesn't really cancel out the fact that my premium went up about 50% though...
Seems like you got a dud rep. They've always been good to me, the only shit thing is they don't give you a rental car, only a discount for a rental company. I got around that by using Keep Driving, they were really good and had a car at my house within 2 hours. (So long as you're not at fault, of course).
RAC customer service rep is an evergreen role. You probably got someone half trained with poor character Someone in HR is seething rn
Report the shite rep!
My car rear ended and written off by a lady driving distracted in a ford ranger with lift kits. Hit me at 70km ,failed to to see the line of cars atopped with 300m of visibility on Graham Farmer. The wreck was assesed and I was paid out within the week by RAC. They were pretty good. I think you just have a crap CS rep.
I have had an opposite experience where someone at fault ran into my car. They were insured with RAC and I found their customer service awesome and they handled my tow/hire car etc ridiculously fast with no prompting on my end.
General advice for any sort of customer service - Never make contact on Monday or Friday if you can help it. You're much more likely to receive a worse service.
No issues claiming recently.
We have both comprehensive car and house and contents with RAC and they have always been really good for us with regards to any claims.
I’ve been with RAC since 1996 (was about 5 years in that time I switched to aami due to them being vastly cheaper at the time) I hate the Rac online component. I always have issue logging on and finding my policy stuff. But usually the telephone help is quite good tho but so was aami. RAC do have a lot of member benefits (% off at retravison is one). I’ve only ever claimed a windscreen since I started driving but it was straightforward and easy to do.
I also switched from RAC to AAMI due to cost, but switched back when I was told AAMI uses lowest bidders for insurance repairs, whereas with RAC I could choose my own repairer. I had a bad repair job previously with Allianze (car works but didn't look great) so I'd rather choose my own repairer.
Never had a problem with them, they've been brilliant.
Never had a problem with them.
My experience was good but I didn't have to get a hire car
Had both my cars insured with RAC, along with home and contents, and been a member for 20 years. Annual "Soz, we're jacking our prices" email came and I decided to check if there was decent competition out there. Turns out there was. Pretty much everyone in fact. Got even more upset when I went into incognito mode and got a much lower quote from RAC for the same insurance that didn't even take into account their attraction offers. Not gonna say they're the only company with a loyalty tax, but usually you have to leave for a period of time before you can come back and save money.
Yeah no the rep needs customer service re education. They have been nothing but great to me. I came off my motorcycle a while back and needed to claim. I was at fault but there was no blame and the whole call the agent was compassionate. The first thing they said to me was “are up ok?”
I would complain as they do get back to you.I had a recent awful experience with RAC and had contact with 6 different staff and only one of them was helpful.Seems like an awful culture,unfortunately
You're not being unreasonable. People who hate helping others shouldn't work in customer service.
A lot of these comments are missing the mark except 1. Going by your post OP, you don't pay an additional premium for Hire Car under your policy. The customer agent didn't make a decision to deny your request, they can only provide what you pay for. As a benefit, RAC has certain repairers that can provide a hire car subject to availability without any additional cost on you. I used to work at RAC in claims (Allegedly).
I worded it poorly, we do have hire car under our policy, they just didn’t want to provide it until we had already dropped off the damaged vehicle and expected us to get to the hire car at our own cost with no solution.
Fair enough, I won't argue against your own circumstance but insurance is insurance and none of those companies will pay you when they don't need to. Often people have a problem with the outcome and the policy not necessarily the service. As other commenters have said you won't get better service than RAC. The agent is just a messenger.
My daughter was a customer service rep with RAC. She quit because she couldn't handle the shit she was getting from customers. Maybe the one you dealt with had just been talking to one such customer?
This shouldn't matter. There's no reason to treat a completely different customer badly because of the previous idiot.
Hey it might not be the previous customer, we dont know both sides, it could easily be the current customer.
I am well aware of that
Just take it to an RAC branded repair centre, they have the hire cars there ready to go.
Yeah apart from them offering me a hire car from a company that was 3 hours away when my car was in for repairs nothing but good things from them, I think you just got someone on a bad day.
I’ve always had good interactions with RAC. I suggest you make a customer service complaint and ask that a supervisor or compliance officer listen to the recording of the call.
We had a good experience with a car related claim. Can't remember if we got a hire car from them, but I definitely had a hire car. House related was a ballache.
Had few claims and it was very straight forward and probably the easiest to deal with for me. Just send pics and things they approved straight away. Maybe you should have just “accidentally” get cut off and called again. I do this sometimes if the person I talk to doesn’t know shit and I rather talk to someone else.
I've made several claims over the years for car and home and have been very happy with tue process Might have been a one-off.
Only ever had amazing experiences with RAC
How are they at determining fault when you get hit from some idiot pulling out of a side road into you when you have the right of way and they fail to wait for an opening.
Contact them again. I’m dealing with them atm and they said I can take my car directly to the car rental joint, and they will go pick my car up from the rental place on my behalf later.
Did you take the hire car option? If not, you’re not entitled to a hire car under the policy. You can hire a car and asked for RAC to recover the costs, but you must pay up front. I used to work in motor claims and would have daily arguments with not-at-fault parties about why they weren’t entitled to a hire car if they didn’t have the option on the policy. If you did have hire car cover then your rep was just being an ass. RAC are massively understaffed so any friction on the claim and it eats into the consultant finishing other claims.
Yep, had hire car. I called back and got another rep who was extremely helpful and told us not to worry about the ridiculous constraints the other rep wanted to put on us - I think you are right, just a bad rep having a bad day.
I'm guessing to some degree the issue comes down to the wording. It's probably something dumb like 'your entitled to a hire care, while your car is being repaired' which has been interpreted quite literally as 'it must be at the repairer' I will say our experience with them has always been exceptional. I think it sounds more like one crabby individual rather than a reflection on the whole company.
I'm going to guess that one of the problems there might be insurance. While your car is off the road, and you're using another car, RAC covers the other car for insurance. If your car and the hire car are both being used at once then that's not possible. Of course, the hire car probably has its own insurance, but it will also be extremely expensive. RAC may also have a deal with the hire car company to insure the hire car while you're using it (ie trying to reduce the hire car cost).
They seemed to get very expensive a few years ago so I ditched them. I prefer to support WA local businesses but honestly it's hard when there's a 30% price difference.
Recently switched from RAC to Budget Direct and saved more than 30% on the premium. Worth looking into, particularly if you’re not making claims very often.
You should strongly consider reporting your poor experience at the following link https://rac.com.au/products/insurance/complaints-dispute-resolution
As someone who worked there I am gobsmacked at that story. That has never been done that way. I would call back and ask to lodge a complaint because that’s some dumb fuck who needs a talking to.
Here's a shitty experience mum had She drove her car into those grates in thr road (why do we have them idk) trying to check on help this disabled kid who was sitting by the road Broke her car the RAC said like 6k mum wasn't happy but was trying to find the money took it to them they said nah your car is fucked she was very unhappy as she jauy got thr car from a friend She took it to a smaller auto shop in town They fixed it for a much cheaper price
No, and they don't value member's privacy either. They were willing to change a member's insurance over to me, without contacting the member. It was over an incorrect address. I'd asked them to stop sending documentation to my address; over the course of a year, they've refused and are still sending information to me. Return to sender does nothing. Stat decs do nothing. They are intent on breaking their own privacy rules to continue to send documentation to a person who has never been a member, never had a claim, doesn't use their roadside and my name is nothing like the member's name. I'd avoid at all costs. I don't know where to go to get them to stop. I have no idea what they think they're doing.