Rolf Schleiss: not every dent is parking damage

“My work revolves around all possible material damage to vehicles: be they cars, motorbikes, bicycles, trucks, and now sometimes even trams. I also assess camper vans and determine the value of vintage cars. I travel around 100 kilometres every day and produce around six expert reports. That amounts to around 1,000 reports a year. That means I assess up to 1,700 vehicles!

Not all damages are paid for

It can be difficult when I have to refuse a claims payment. I generally do that over the telephone. I confront the customer directly with the facts, for example ‘it is not parking damage’, and with objective arguments. This will often result in an argument. My 17 years as a claims expert have taught me not to take things personally. One thing that’s not so easy to deal with are accidents that result in deaths. When I inspect a car that has been involved in an accident, it does get me thinking.

Creative “hail damage”

I often find myself chuckling at claims descriptions. When the customer writes that he got out of the car and couldn’t find it again a short time later because it had rolled away. Or when somebody drops ice cubes from a balcony onto the roof of a car and then reports hail damage. That did actually happen! But the plan didn’t work, because a neighbour saw what they were doing. I dare say any claims inspector would agree with me when I say: there’s no end to the weird and wonderful things we see.”