What to do if your car is stolen

You wake up in the morning and get ready to head to work.  You walk toward your car pouch / parking bay and …… you did not see your car there!!!  The first thing that come to your mind is ” My car is stolen!!”

Well, it is natural to get panic.  We would like to discuss about your insurance coverage for stolen car.

Insurance Coverage

There are basically 3 common insurance, ie Comprehensive, Third Party, Fire & Theft (TPFT) and Third Party (TP) insurance.  The first two insurance coverage (Comprehensive and TPFT) will cover for stolen car, so if indeed your car is stolen, your insurance policy will respond and compensate you accordingly.

However, if your insurance coverage is only for Third Party.  Then unfortunately, you will have to accept the lost and hope the police manage to recover your lost car.

Incident of loss

In the above scenario, your car was indeed stolen from your place of residence, there is no doubt that your insurance policy will compensate you.  However, if you lose your vehicle due to negligent on your part, your insurance policy will not respond.  Example of negligence such as you willingly hand your vehicle to a car jockey service provider, and moment later realized that your car was lost.  In such case, your insurance may not respond but you can pursue legal action against the car jockey provider for your loss.

Another example would be that you hand over your key to a car wash operator by the road side.  Instead of staying around, you venture off to other places and return only hours later.  You then realized that your car was lost / stolen.  This is clear negligence on your part. Similarly, you can sue the car wish operator, but that is another challenge.

Of course, there is also cases of car hijacked, whereby you are forcefully removed from your car and your car got driven off without you.  While, this is not car stolen, but car lost due to hijack.  Rest assured that your insurance will compensate you. (For comprehensive and TPFT coverage only)

Making a Claim

Once you are completely sure that your car was stolen, after checking that none of your family members drove it away, or got tow away for hazard parking and you have no outstanding bank installment.  You must proceed to make a police report.

With the police report, notify your insurance agent and or insurance company so that they can help you to file for a claim.  Claim progress for lost vehicle can take up many months.  The police investigation alone can be up to 6 months.  Upon completion of the police investigation, the insurance company will settle your claim.

Recovery of Vehicle

If your lost vehicle was recovered before the insurance company paying out your claim, your vehicle will be returned to you.  If there are any damages, you can file for own-damaged claim, if you have a comprehensive policy.  Should your vehicle be recovered after the insurance claim pay-out, legally that vehicle does not belong to you anymore.  It belongs to the insurance company who will decide what to do with that car.  Claiming for own damage to repair your recovered car will affect your NCD.  Thus, if the damage is not too serious, you can consider repairing at your own cost to save on your NCD.

Pay out amount

The amount pay out for your vehicle will depend on whether you have insured your vehicle under Indemnity value (market value) or Agreed Value.  Read more about the difference between Market Value and Agreed Value here. If you have insured under indemnity value, as long as you are not under-insured, the payout will be based on the market value of your vehicle at time of loss.

Dispute on Payout offer

If the insurance company payout offer was not agreeable to you or rejected your claim. You can dispute the offer or decision and appeal.  You can bring your complaint to respective insurance company complaint unit.  The Insurance company complaint unit will evaluate your case and make a decision.  If that is still not acceptable, you can bring your case to the Ombudsman for Financial Services, previous known as Financial Mediation Bureau or Bank Negera Malaysia (Pengarah Laman Informasi Nasihat Dan Khidmat)