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I'm an Aussie who moved to Ottawa, Canada in 2008. I'm always having a moan about something. This is where I moan and whinge about things. Enjoy.

Friday 25 September 2020

Fucking Insurance Company (Part III)


This is part 3 in a ? part series.

Part I: http://www.theangryaussie.com/2020/09/insurance-company.html
Part II: http://www.theangryaussie.com/2020/09/insurance-company-part-ii.html
Part III: You are here!

So, in part II, I finally got a reply from the insurance company.

I had been avoiding naming them until this point, while negotiations were still ongoing, but at this point our business is concluded, to I can reveal that they are ironically called "The Co-Operators".

It seems pretty ironic to me because it seems like they are cooperating with the other driver who rammed me off the road, after I had to attempt to contact the General Insurance Ombudservice (GIO), due to having been ignored by them for a week, because the initial agent, who was just trying to fob me off, went on vacation, and no one else was checking/responding to her email.

So after that reply, see part II, I started responding. This is the reply which I typed up initially:


Hello [redacted].

I am currently physically away from my phone, which is why I was not aware of your attempt to call, and why I was unable to answer.

Please allow me to respond to your understanding of my explanation of the events:

It appears as though we are driving down a road with two lanes going in the same direction, with traffic flowing in both lanes.

This is correct.

According to your dashcam, there are some signs that indicate the left lane (the one we are established and driving in) is going to end soon. Vehicles in front of us start to merge over to the right lane.

This is correct.

As we keep driving, it appears as though we get to the end of our lane(our lane begins to shrink in diameter).

Correct. I travelled to the end of the lane, at which point I need to leave the left lane, as it is ending. This is referred to as a zipper merge, and this is how people are supposed to drive. This news article attempts to explain, in case you are not familiar with the principle: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/all-hail-the-zipper-merge-how-canadian-politeness-is-killing-the-efficiency-of-our-highways

It is at this point that we attempt to merge over to the right lane. As you have described and the footage shows, we aren’t able to fully complete our merge when the vehicle in the right lane strikes our vehicle.

Correct. I was merging into the lane, using a nice gentle movement to the right, which will use what's left of the lane which is ending for me to integrate into the single lane of traffic. I have all but completed my merge, when the vehicle behind me, who could have slowed, but chose not to, then rammed into the back of my car.

This collision causes us to have to manoeuvre ourselves to the right shoulder of the road and come to a stop. The dashcam footage ends here.

Sorry, you are incorrect at this point. After the driver behind me impacted the back of my car, which was a fairly minor impact, before I had a chance to do anything in the manner of trying to pull over, he proceeded to drive around to the right side of my vehicle, and then steer his vehicle back to the left, directly into the right side of my vehicle. This causes the rear of my vehicle to start drifting to the left as he is actively pushing my vehicle sideways. My rear tyres are screeching as my car is being pushed from the side. This causes my car to end up aiming towards the barrier on the side of the road, which I am then unable to steer away from, and collide with.

If you review the dashcam footage I provided again, you will see that it demonstrates that this is what happened.

But you have advised that the driver of the vehicle that struck you, then comes out of their vehicle and proceeds to strike your window, causing it to shatter. Police are called and later arrive.

Correct. As soon as the vehicles stopped, he exited his vehicle, and proceeded to smash my rear window.

-what did the other vehicle do that was wrong and against rules of traffic…. Not letting someone merge in front of them, is not against highway traffic act.

-prove to us that he did something wrong…with this I have no evidence to use against him. I can’t prove that he struck your vehicle intentionally (vehicle to vehicle) and I can’t prove anything else that what he did violates the traffic act or rules of insurance etc


The other driver drove around and then steered into the side of my vehicle. He rammed my vehicle off the road and into a barrier. You have the dashcam footage I provided, which shows that there was a minor impact when the other driver chose to drive into the back of my vehicle, at which point my vehicle continues travelling straight and forward for several seconds, until it abruptly starts travelling sideways and then smashes into a barrier.

I don't understand how you are unable to see that this was caused by the other driver actively ramming into the side of my car, as a second impact, after he chose to drive into the back of my vehicle.

So based on what you are telling me, I am allowed to just ram into the back of people's cars and then drive around and ram into the side of their cars and shove them off the road, and get out and smash their windows if I don't like the fact that they changed lanes in front of me am I? That's certainly going to make driving more interesting in future.

This whole interaction has been completely and utterly ridiculous, not to mention the fact that this collision occurred 13 days ago, and it has taken this long to get any sort of reply. This is completely unacceptable.

I do hope that you at least understand the position we are in.

I completely understand the position that you are in. You see that I am a customer of yours who only pays for liability insurance, so I'm just free money to you. You take my money and give me nothing. You are going to just fob me off and do nothing because it's easier than trying to make the other driver's insurance company pay for the damage to my vehicle that he caused.

So I am now going to have to attempt to sue the other driver for the cost of repairing the damage to my vehicle, the same as I would have to do if both neither he nor I had any insurance at all, which makes me wonder why I do bother having any insurance at all, because it would probably have been more cost effective for me to have just been driving around with no insurance, and pay the fine for not having any, rather than having been a customer of yours for the last 8 years or however long it has been, and it certainly appears that I would have received exactly the same level of service.

Meanwhile I get to drive around in a smashed up car with a garbage bag for a rear window until I possibly get some compensation from the other driver in order to pay for the repairs. Maybe I should put a wrap on the car advertising your company while I am at it?

Thank you very much, for absolutely nothing, other than being a complete waste of my time and money.


Figuring that this summary and conclusion was probably not going to work very productively or in my favour, I went back and edited it, and sent what was in part II.

I just saved my original reply as a draft in here (on September 24th, and I have "published" it "on" the 25th, to keep things in order..), figuring that I may get the chance to eventually publish it, depending on the outcome of the whole thing.

You'll have to keep reading for that..

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