Never using Naked again.

I started using Naked a year ago for my vehicle. While the digital platform works, it chooses convenience over thoroughness. Naturally, convenience appeals to the consumer, but there are some parts that the app will happily skip during registration for vehicle cover, most notably, the insured amount of your vehicle. So, you enter into the insurance contract without knowing what the insured amount is. You can find the amount, with minor struggle, on the app after you have contracted with them, but before contracting you have no idea unless you go out of your way and ask (which isn’t overly simple with Naked’s whole don’t talk to a human pitch).

Anyway, that’s the first catch with them - you really need to be proactive about finding that insured amount.

The next catch, is how ambiguous the policy wording is when it comes to the insured amount for vehicles. It explains that it gets the amounts from the industry standard guide (the TransUnion one that’s behind a paywall), but it also explains that this amount is “the price most dealers would be prepared to sell your car for, based on the mileage and condition of the car“. Because the average consumer only has access to the policy wording and not the TransUnion database, a reasonable person would infer from that quoted line that the insured amount will be similar to what you can buy the car for from a dealer. Well, no. My car’s insured amount was about 35k less than the price I’d pay a dealer for it.

The TransUnion database is very out of touch with the second hand car market and especially for older cars (mainly brands like Toyota’s) that tend to hold their value. Unfortunately, this ridiculous database is widespread throughout the industry, so there’s no avoiding it. But, it’s good to be aware of how out of touch it can be.

When my car was deemed a write-off and I got the settlement amount, it was a silly number and far from the “fair” they claim in the policy wording.

Maybe for perspective as to how unfair the settlement amount was: the settlement amount was ~80k and the car was sold at salvage auction for 70k (with it needing allegedly about 40k in repairs to reinstate it to driving condition). Furthermore, if I do the maths (taking into account excess and premiums), Naked made close to a profit off my car being a write-off. Does that seem right? Should an insurance company make a profit when a car is written off? I think that says it all about how fair the settlement amount was. No insurance company should be profiting off of write-offs, they should be profiting off of the people that pay premiums but never need to use the insurance service.

I raised my concerns about the settlement amount (before the car went to auction) with the complaints department. They proceeded to “straw-man” my initial argument and ignore most of my requests. They completely ignored my follow-up email. I have no doubt that this shocking customer service is pervasive throughout the industry, but it’s a shame that even the new kid on the block needs to act with such disregard for what is fair for their clients.

I will never be using Naked again. Hopefully, they don’t stick around for long - given they are just a “pretty” digital wrapper on top of Hollard.

I imagine they might respond to this with some of the standard corporate “kool-aid”. I won’t be reading it, and I suggest you don’t take it seriously.