The online auto insurance company has advised customers to look out for signs of poor towing practices after results were published by Property Casualty Insurers Association of America or the PCI.
Unscrupulous tow truck operators take stranded motorists for a jolly ride in Chicago than in any other part of the nation, as per the survey. The poll has also found that the towing and storage charges had skyrocketed and were always inconsistent throughout the nation. This was the biggest challenge faced by consumers.
New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago were considered to be the worst cities nationwide as they had the most outrageous charges on towing and storage. Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New York were the states that topped the list for aggressive towing practices.
The inputs for the survey had been obtained from over 1,000 member insurance companies from PCI. It highlighted some of the common hassles that consumers faced which resulted in huge bills for both the insurers as well as the customers. This in turn made it impossible for consumers to maintain affordable auto insurance policies.
A sample of the consumer feedback is as follows:
– An insurer was billed $892 by an Iowa company to tow the vehicle for 7 miles.
– A woman from Chicago had to shell out $915 as towing charges and a daily storage bill of $100 after being involved in a minor accident. Her vehicle could not be released from the tow company without making cash payment.
– An administrative fee of $350 was levied by a towing operator in Virginia just to notify the owners via mail that the vehicles had been moved to a storage facility.
The claims flagged by the insurers due to towing bills and padded storage have more than doubled since 2010, as per the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Bob Passmore who is an executive at PCI stated that being involved in an accident gets that much worse because of these unscrupulous and aggressive towing companies.
However, industry experts claim that most of the tow truck companies are quite trustworthy but they do point out that there are fraudsters out there. Sometime in 2010, the New York State Insurance Department had reported that the most common scam involved tow operators listening to the police scanners and then rushing to accident sites and then compelling motorists to have their vehicles towed to auto repair shops that charges exorbitant rates.
