Eight insurance companies signed an agreement today pursuant to which they will offer Direct Claims Adjustment (DCA) to their clients. The service shall start on 1 April 2015 and shall be preceded by a month’s pilot programme. Clients shall benefit from implementation of DCA as insurers shall be competing with each other in third party liability claims adjustment quality.
Direct Claims Adjustment is a system enabling car repair or regaining compensation from one’s third party liability insurer and not, as hitherto, from the claim perpetrator’s insurer. DCA has been used in Europe for several dozen years, among others, in France, Belgium, Spain or Italy. The following insurers shall join DCA system developed by the Polish Insurance Chamber: Concordia Ubezpieczenia, Ergo Hestia, PZU, UNIQA, Warta (from 1 April 2015), Aviva, Liberty Ubezpieczenia (from 1 July 2015) and Gothaer (from 15 October 2015). Collectively, the abovementioned insurers represent 68% of third party liability market measured with the collected premium.
– Direct Claims Adjustment has been the most important project in the Polish insurance market in recent years. Due to several months’ work of company representatives united at the Polish Insurance Chamber we have developed a solution which enables the claimants to adjust their claims with their insurer. That is why many clients shall start to pay more attention to the quality of services offered, said Jan Grzegorz Prądzyński, CEO of Polish Insurance Chamber.
In practice, the claimant’s insurer will deal with determining the claim amount and the compensation payment. After the payment of the compensation, already without the engagement of the client, the claim shall be settled between the claimant’s insurance company and the perpetrator’s insurance company. What is significant for drivers, DCA system shall not cause increase nor decrease of prices.
– After two months of intensive work, I am proud to admit that DCA shall be available for the majority of Polish drivers. Finally, insurance companies offering third party motor liability insurance will be able to compete for clients with quality of services and not only the price, said Rafał Stankiewicz, Chairman of Claims Adjustment Commission at the Polish Insurance Chamber.
Direct Claims Adjustment shall refer to the prevailing majority of communication accidents which will occur on the Polish roads. In each country where DCA was implemented some claims were initially excluded from the system. That shall be the case in Poland as well. DCA shall not apply to, e.g.:
• personal claims
• claims which occur outside Poland
• claims the value of which exceeds PLN 30 thousand
It should be underlined that claims not qualifying to DCA constitute minority among all road accidents.
