NRMA insurance dispute: Shocking dash cam footage of car crash in NSW involving off-duty cop’s car
- An off-duty officer was involved in a highway pile-up
- Her insurer, NRMA, declined to process the claim
- At first they claimed she was guilty, but then they stopped the repairs
An off-duty police officer has been through hell after her insurer initially blamed her for a multi-car pile-up, then refused to pay for part of the repairs.
Jenny rang Sydney’s doorbell 2GB radio Tuesday to speak to Ben Fordham about her daughter’s NRMA insurance claim following a July 9 accident on the Hume Highway in NSW.
Jenny initially filed the claim on July 10 with a foreign call center whose operator had falsely identified her daughter as the driver at fault.
Despite providing dash cam footage, the family is still plagued by the ordeal two months after booking the car into a repair shop, with NRMA now refusing to pay for two new panels to be painted.
A massive crash on NSW’s Hume Highway on July 9 sparked a nightmare insurance claim for an off-duty agent whose car was involved
Jenny had assumed it would be an easy thing to do, as footage showed her daughter standing still before one car brushed another behind her, causing the car to roll several times.
“When we initially made the claim over the phone through one of their overseas call centers, she kept calling it ‘our car hit another car,'” Jenny told Fordham.
“I kept telling them, ‘No, that’s not right,’ but they kept referring to it.
“When they contacted us a few days later, they still hadn’t confirmed that we weren’t at fault, even though the dashcam footage proves we’re not at fault.”
The issue was finally resolved when Jenny took matters into her own hands and personally drove to the nearest NRMA office to speak to a representative in person.
The brand new car, which Jenny’s daughter bought for $61,000 in May, was approved for repair in late July, but another problem arose on August 1.
After the car was reserved for repair, NRMA called Jenny to discuss the discrepancies between what the repair shop wanted and what the insurer was willing to pay for.
The repairman had told Jenny that their workshop guidelines state that if a panel needs to be replaced, the paint should be mixed with the surrounding areas.
Due to the damage to the car as a result of the accident, both a front panel and a door had to be replaced.
“Well, the NRMA won’t allow this to happen to this day,” Jenny said.
“What happened to the famous NRMA motto, ‘Help (is who we are)’?”
After weeks of trying to resolve the issue, Jenny and her daughter instead filed a separate claim with the insurer of the defaulted car.
The officer’s mother, Jenny, told 2GB’s Ben Fordham that despite dash cam footage clearly showing her daughter was not at fault, NRMA would not agree to pay any portion of the claim.
Jenny told Mr Fordham that she was told not to make the second claim from NRMA, but she did so within a day with the help of the repairman.
“The insurance company at fault called me and confirmed all the details and they approved it within days — the same claim we made through the NRMA,” Jenny revealed.
After the long and arduous insurance battle, Jenny now hopes that her daughter will get the car back before the end of the week.
She said that despite being involved in the crash herself, her daughter took responsibility for coordinating the crash site, even though she was not at work at the time.
“She had to control the scene, make all the calls, get the ambulances there, the fire department, the other police officers, and she had to control the scene until they arrived.
“She also had to check that the five people in that car who had overturned were okay and not dead.”
Fordham assured Jenny that he is now working on the case and will personally contact the insurance company after the radio host uploaded dashcam footage to his website.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted NRMA for comment.