'Back part of the car is missing': Insurance experts begin wildly overstating car accident damages at their boss's demand

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 25, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

These workers had a fun "moment of brilliance" while still following their boss's directions. 

If you drive, there's a strong chance you have car insurance, and that's the industry this person worked in. U/un0hu was one of the many employees working behind the scenes after a person gets into an accident. From tiny scratches to fender benders to totaled cars, the employees at this firm saw everything. Their job was to rate how badly the cars were damaged. You know how you're supposed to snap a bunch of photos of your car after an accident? These people are the reason why. They're able to slap a price tag on the accident to report how much each person involved in the accident should be paid by their insurance. 

Photos are pretty crucial to this job, but for some reason, the boss at this person's workplace just did not care about that. He's one of those managers who are so blinded by money that they care about nothing else, and he let his employees know it. But there's only so far that kind of attitude will take him before it comes back to haunt him, as you can read about in the story below. 

Up next, these people shared their very creative workplace pranks, like some employees who gleefully froze their coworker's bike to the freezer floor. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10378877696
    via RoonZ nl on Unsplash
  • 02
    Respond to all emails, or else ... So on my previous job position, I was working as an 'expert' on vehicle damages (mostly superficial with some exceptions), but we were outsourcing for Germany (I live in a small country called Macedonia), so all the evaluations were done electronically. We were sent
    via u/un0hu
  • 03
    pictures and reports of the cars conditions and we move on from there. Now, a lot of the people tasked with taking these pictures did a poor job of them and we had to send back almost half of what we received daily, to get a real picture of the actual problem in question for each car. Our boss
    via u/un0hu
  • 04
    from Germany (a stingy as can be human) didn't like this at all, because he only cared about numbers, so on several occasions he, once or twice screaming even, bashed us with saying 'I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PICTURES, JUST CALCULATE THE DAMAGE AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE!'Cue
    via u/un0hu
  • 05
    malicious compliance: No problem boss.We started sorting through the images and reporting everything that looked off as a damage. Soon, the company started to get reclamations for sums exceeding $2000 for a hood/door scratch, with explanations ranging from: Whole
    via u/un0hu
  • 06
    door distorted (image was compressed); Paint smudged (image blurred) and so on. But the creme-de-la-creme, was a colleague of mine that had a moment of brilliance! He got a picture of the front part of the car, taken from drivers side, with damage reported as: Rear bumper scratched. He
    via u/un0hu
  • 07
    immediately returned an evaluation of: Back part of the car is missing. Honda Civic 2010 - evaluated cost of repair - NEW ~ CAR $10,000.One month later, our local coordinator informed us that the whole team of people taking pictures of the cars has been changed and we'll start getting better pictures. We didn't, but at least we weren't yelled at for our requests any more.
    via u/un0hu
  • 08
    EatMoreArtichokes Was it only visible damage or could you guys add things like "horn not working", "headlights burnt out", "exhaust too loud"?
    via u/EatMoreArtichokes
  • 09
    HappyMeatbag A few years ago, a guy I knew needed me to take photos of his back yard after a storm, so he could then send them to his insurance agency. He was reporting some roof damage, too, but had already taken those photos.
    via u/HappyMeatbag
  • 10
    Strong winds had blown some big, dead branches. into his yard. A fence was broken. No big deal, but with some creative choices regarding perspective and angle, I made it look like the apocalypse. Just judging by the photos, it looked like a whole dead forest had been dropped in his back yard. It was fun!
    via u/HappyMeatbag
  • 11
    ca... I was recently working with my (US) insurance company on some cosmetic damage when a jersey backed into the car and left. They have a smartphone app that leads you through the steps of taking the pictures they need. The app even puts an outline of the car on the screen so you if you are too close or too far away.
    via u/capn_kwick
  • 12
    Fluffy-Mastodon Back part of the car is missing. Love that!
    via u/Fluffy-Mastodon
  • 13
    issius Depending on the organizational structure, this does make sense to me. It's a problem that clearly was costing money and not being resolved. Now, the correct way would be to take a sample (say a month) and quantify how much "rework" there is and how much that impacts productivity and therefore what the cost is.
    via u/issius
  • 14
    Then roll that up and have the picture guys address it. If the boss has no ability to do this, then he's better off doing what he did.. focus on his own numbers and let the guys providing garbage figure it out when it affects them.
    via u/issius

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