Insurance companies - laptop replacement

[king1]

They offered a client of mine a $700 cheapie consumer grade rubbish laptop, as a full replacement for a commercial notebook that I supplied a couple of years ago, $1600 or so at the time...  

There is a BIG difference in specs and build quality between the two - when they are supposed to be providing a like for like replacement according to the policy terms...

Is it even ethical to offer such a budget model under the circumstances?  They got all upset when I was going to supply the replacement, insisting they need to supply it because of better buying power etc.   But clearly thats BS and they just want to try passing off the cheapie rubbish...  

If clients of insurance companies can be prosecuted for insurance fraud, why is this sort of behaviour acceptable...  A lot of folks wouldn't understand the difference in specs...

[Oldfellah]

Insurance companies try and do the dirty on every one and try to get the best results for themselves, never mind the poor clients that have been paying in for years and years ... its a rip off but a bloody necessary evil.

[Lilith7]

Insurance companies are not much liked here thanks to their behaviour after the quakes. I wasn't affected but many people were, & some say that their treatment by insurance firms was worse then the quakes.
I think Fiona Farrell put it best:

"What is repeatedly happening in Christchurch is many insurers denying & reducing policy holders claims, routinely refusing to pay market prices for homes & replacement of contents, use of ‘low-pitched’ computer programmes to cut payouts, changes of policy coverage with no clear explanation, ignoring or altering engineering reports, & sometimes asking their adjusters to slow down claim progress or lie to customers. Then the insurers make low offers or refuse to pay at all.

They stall until claimants are so desperate that they are then prepared or forced by circumstances to accept what the insurers offer them.
Sarah Miles, (CHCH investment banking lawyer with experience in the insurance sector) The Christchurch fiasco:The insurance aftershock & its implications for New Zealand & beyond.
Such techniques have been employed before to profitable purpose. In America for example, following the devastation unleashed by hurricane Katrina in August 2005, property-casualty insurers reported record profits of up to 49 percent.

By way of illustration of that abuse & its deliberate cynicism, Miles mentions a logo that featured on the internal documents of an American insurance company, Allstate:it was an alligator, captioned simply ‘Sit & Wait.’"

Fiona Farrell, the villa at the edge of the empire