60% of Grupo Catalana Occidente's customers who had a car accident used the home vehicle appraisal service

"This innovative service, offered to car insurance customers, is firmly established after two and a half years of operation."

Seguros Catalana Occidente, Plus Ultra Seguros and Seguros Bilbao have been offering their car insurance customers the home vehicle appraisal service since the end of 2019. Currently, the insured parties who use this convenient service to appraise their vehicle after suffering an accident has already reached 60% of the total. Specifically, the insurance group performs, on average, 6,500 home visits per month.

The service allows the appraiser to advise the customer directly on the repair of the damages, and is available to customers who have taken out fully comprehensive car insurance, with or without excess, and car insurance with third-party coverage if there is a payment commitment from the third-party insurance company when the damage occurs and provided that no assistance is required from a towing company. The service is very simple: after declaring the damage to the car, the customer must inform their company where they want the appraiser to come, who will travel to the agreed place to assess the damage. Once the situation has been analysed, this appraiser will offer the policyholder the option to arrange an appointment with the most suitable garage in order to speed up the process so the policyholder can have their vehicle back as quickly as possible.  This way, the customer will not have to worry - if they so choose - about checking the availability of garages or the parts needed for the repair.

87% of the appraisals managed through this option are carried out in the insured party's home and 1.5% in the customer's workplace, while in 11% of cases the appraisal is done at a workshop. As for the agility in the provision of the service, in 76% of cases the first contact is carried out in less than two hours from the request and 65% of the appraisals take place in the first 24 hours.

Thus, thanks to its advantages and the convenience it offers, 82.68% of customers surveyed after a home appraisal rated the service with 9 out of 10, with particular emphasis on the clarity of the explanations and the treatment received by the appraisers.

This service, the first of its kind in the sector, was launched in late 2019 in an effort to offer the best experience to customers and address their new needs. After more than 168,000 appraisals managed through this system, Antonio Gutiérrez, director of the Grupo Catalana Occidente company that manages the networks of collaborators involved in claims, emphasized that, "this service has been well received by our customers and has become consolidated as one of the most highly rated options for processing a claim in the car insurance section".

Similarly, the manager of the network of collaborators and appraisers of Grupo Catalana Occidente affirmed that "the home appraisal service has allowed us to bring appraisers, an essential figure in our business due to their experience and professionalism, to customers, while at the same time we are moving towards a model of providing value-added services".

Repairs in AutoPresto workshops

The home assessment service provides insured parties with a series of extra benefits, including express repairs in the AutoPresto network of workshops. Thereby, 17% of repairs are carried out in less than 24 hours and 28% in less than 48 hours.

The AutoPresto network has workshops throughout Spain and handles 50% of repairs arising from home vehicle damage assessment reports. These centres offer advantages such as a free courtesy vehicle, free collection and delivery of the customer's vehicle or free cleaning. The service quality of this network of workshops is rated by the insured parties at 9.4 and the treatment received at 9.3.