Myopia at Scale: One IAG Assessor, One Ford Ranger, and Everything That Is Wrong With Misfuel Claims in New Zealand

This article is built from the job record, the invoice, written correspondence with IAG on claim C5577180, and recorded phone calls. Callers to our lines are told calls are recorded, and recording was confirmed verbally at the start of the key call below. Quotations are from those recordings. The customer is not named.

The Report Went In on 23 September. Then Nothing.

A 2019 Ford Ranger was filled with petrol instead of diesel and driven. By the time it reached our contracted workshop in Christchurch, the damage was through the fuel system: brass and aluminium filings in the diesel filter and in the tank. That is what petrol does to a modern common-rail diesel — it strips the lubrication the high-pressure pump depends on, the pump grinds itself apart, and the metal travels through the rail into the injectors.

We repaired it. On 23 September 2026 the insurance report went to ASB Insurance — underwritten by IAG New Zealand — under claim number C5577180, with the tax invoice: $19,136.54 in services, $4,308.77 paid, $14,827.77 outstanding. The vehicle stayed where it was, held under our liens pending payment. Everything the insurer needed to assess the claim was in that report.

What followed was silence — and then nine days of us chasing them.

"Every Time I've Called, I've Kind of Got Blown Off"

Our job system logs outbound chase calls to AMI's claims line (0800 100 200) on 23, 25 and 29 September. On 1 October at 1:11pm, with the vehicle still held and the workshop needing its bay back, we called again. This call is recorded:

"We've got the vehicle held at the moment. We want to be able to release it, but we can't do that until we get paid... it's been an ongoing issue because every time I've called, I've kind of got blown off. And I'm pretty much going to have to put the vehicle into storage and start charging the customer storage fees now because it has to be cleared out of the workshop."

The consultant, Pam, promised to get through to the assessor and call back. She took our number down and repeated it back. No callback came.

So we called again the same afternoon, at 4:32pm. Also recorded:

"We had a conversation literally today and also every other day and I was told that someone would come back to me, but nobody did... In fact, I've probably called most days and we're just not getting anywhere. Getting blown off."

This time the agent read from the notes: the matter had been "escalated it to a leader", the assessor was "discussing it with a manager tomorrow morning" — and, in her own words, "it doesn't actually say when we might actually get an update." No timeframe. No commitment. Meanwhile, as we told them on that call, the customer was desperate for the vehicle and needed it back by Thursday — the next day.

That is what "assessment" looked like from the outside: a week and a half of chasing, two promises of callbacks in a single day, an escalation with no date on it, and a customer without his vehicle.

The Email That Promised Contact — Then the End-Run

Late on 1 October, IAG finally put something in writing. An email from the claims team: "I have spoken with the Motor Assessor and he is reviewing your invoice. Once he has completed the review, we will contact you."

The contact never came. What came instead, the next morning, was a call to our office from our own contracted workshop: IAG's assessor had contacted them directly — without our knowledge — to question them about the job, asking for invoices, parts details and procedures. The workshop wanted nothing to do with it. They had been engaged by us, paid by us, and asked us to deal with it.

Note what our claim correspondence already said, in writing: "Please do not contact the workshop contractor directly." He did it anyway.

At 9:34am on 2 October we rang the assessor and left a voicemail. Recorded: the workshop is contracted by us, has been paid, does not want to deal with the insurer directly — bring any questions to us on 09-885-2000. Then, at 10:25am, we rang AMI's line again to put our position on the record. Also recorded:

"I am the principal repairer on this vehicle... the assessor has contacted my contractor and that is not appropriate. All communication related to this claim must go through EEK Mechanical as the principal repairer for the job... the contractor has already been paid by me for the job."

The response from AMI's agent is worth quoting too, because it describes standard practice without apparent embarrassment: assessors, she said, "will sometimes go to other repairers in order to seek a competing quote" where they believe a quote is too high. Behind the principal's back. From the principal's own contractors. While the principal is on the phone asking them not to.

The 10:39am Call: Settlement "With the Customer"

At 10:39am the assessor rang our insurer line — with the customer already on the call. We asked the customer to drop off (he has held our report since it was issued; nothing was hidden from him), confirmed recording was acceptable, and the conversation began.

The assessor asked us to guide them "towards something for a settlement for the customer". When we offered to discuss settlement, he corrected us:

"No, sorry, our settlement will be with [the customer] regarding his policy response."

Read that carefully. IAG would assess our invoice, decide what it thought the work was worth, and settle with the customer at that figure. The customer remains contractually liable to us for the full invoiced amount, and his vehicle remains held under lien until it is paid. Every dollar of difference between our invoice and IAG's number lands on IAG's own policyholder — the man who had been without his vehicle for two weeks. The insurer caps its payout and walks away. That is the model.

Our contract is with the person who engaged us. IAG is not a party to it. An insurer's "assessment" changes what the insurer pays its customer. It does not change what that customer owes the repairer he chose. Insurers know this. Most of their customers do not.

Going Around the Principal

When we raised the direct contact with our contractor, the assessor did not accept the point:

"I guess we need to talk to the people that complete the work so we understand that vehicle manufacturers' processes have been followed correctly."

No. You need to talk to the party you are dealing with. EEK Mechanical is the principal on every job we run. Our Terms of Service, which the customer accepted, appoint EEK as the customer's Principal Repairer — irrevocable once work has started. We are expressly not a panel repairer and not subject to any insurer's panel pricing. And under §11.12 of those same Terms, we do not disclose our supplier network, internal pricing structures or subcontractor arrangements to insurers. That information is commercially ours — and it is exactly what the assessor went to the workshop to extract.

Insurers understand principal-contractor protocol perfectly well when it protects them. They run their own assessing and repair chains through contractors, and nobody expects to bypass the insurer and cross-examine its contractors about its internal arrangements. When the roles are reversed, it is apparently fine. The workshop came straight to us within the hour — a contractor respecting the chain of responsibility it signed up to.

He Questioned the Cheapest Option

The assessor then turned to parts: "My understanding is you used second-hand injectors [and] fuel pump on this..." Yes. Here is why.

When the workshop found metal through the filter and tank, three repair paths were priced:

• New injectors, pump, rail and lines: about $12,650
• A refurbished replacement engine: about $11,350, plus around 20 hours of fitting
• Quality second-hand injectors, pump and rail: about $8,320

We chose the second-hand option — the cheapest of the three — and we chose it for the insurer's benefit. Our instruction to the workshop on 14 September is on the job record: go with the second-hand parts, "because obviously for the insurer, we have to justify why we spend what we're spending." That single decision took more than $4,000 out of the parts cost against new.

And to make sure nobody was exposed by it, every pump and injector we supply carries a 12-month no-fault warranty under §12.5 of our Terms, plus a Certificate of Compliance filed through NZIFDA. If those second-hand parts fail, we pay — not the insurer, not the customer.

So IAG's lead assessor rang to question the decision that saved his own company the most money, on a job where the repairer carries the warranty risk. The myopia is the point: nothing in front of him — not the three quotes, not the warranty, not the $4,000 saving — registered. Only the red pen.

OEM Compliance Is Certified, Not Assumed

The assessor suggested that because contractor hands did the physical work, we were merely assuming manufacturer procedures had been followed — seals, fluids, installation steps.

We assume nothing. Every EEK contractor attests to OEM specification and the EEK Procedure Standard twice: when accepting the job and again when invoicing it, both timestamped in the job record. The work follows a documented procedure — OEM-approved fuel extraction, never through the filler; line, filter and pump inspection; reinstallation to torque and seal standards; flush and function test; disposal of the contaminated fuel under the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017 with dockets kept for seven years. Replacement injectors on a common-rail diesel must be coded to the engine control unit — the injector programming on this invoice is that step, itemised, because without it the engine does not run properly.

Every one of those facts was in the report IAG received on 23 September.

Section 31 Says What It Says

On the recorded call, the assessor reached for the Consumer Guarantees Act: costs that are not "fair and reasonable" and within "a normal market rate", he said, put the repairer in breach.

That is not what the Act says. The "reasonable price" guarantee for services is section 31 of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, and it applies only where the price was not determined by the contract and was not left to be determined in a manner agreed by the contract. It is a safety net for when nobody agreed a price. It does not let a third party rewrite one that was agreed.

Our price was agreed in the agreed manner. The customer booked under our Terms of Service, which incorporate our published rate card — public, on our website, visible to any insurer before, during or after any job:

• Standard labour (7am–5pm, Monday to Friday): $287.50/hr
• After-hours labour (1.5x): $431.25/hr
• Public holidays (2x): $575.00/hr

This job entered the workshop on a Sunday and was worked after hours. It was invoiced at 17 hours x $431.25 — the published after-hours rate, applied exactly as written. The rate the assessor challenged is printed on our website.

The CGA protects consumers from surprise pricing and poor workmanship. It is not a tool for an insurer to decide, days later, that an agreed and published rate is too high — and then use that to pay its own policyholder less. Across more than 2,600 jobs, every formal dispute raised against us has been resolved in our favour. A published rate card, an accepted contract and a complete job record is a position the CGA supports.

This Is the Industry, Not One Man

Misfuel is not panel damage, and assessing it like panel damage is how claims like this go wrong. Misfuel is contamination, and contamination spreads. A petrol-in-diesel event on a common-rail engine is a race between the contaminant and the component: stop the vehicle, get it on a truck, strip the system, find how far the metal went. Pricing that like a bumper respray — comparing an hourly rate to a body shop down the road, shopping a competing quote behind the repairer's back, settling with the customer at whatever number survives — misunderstands the job from the first principles.

The record on this claim:

• a complete report issued to the insurer on 23 September;
• chase calls on 23, 25 and 29 September, twice on 1 October, and again on the morning of 2 October;
• two callback promises in a single day, neither kept;
• an escalation "to a leader" with no date on it;
• a written instruction not to contact the workshop, ignored;
• a settlement posture staged with the customer on the line, with the shortfall landing on him;
• a challenge to the cheapest repair option, carrying a 12-month repairer-backed warranty;
• and a policyholder still without his vehicle, with storage accruing, needing it back the next day.

Since 31 March 2025, licensed insurers in New Zealand have been bound by the fair conduct principle under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. IAG is also a member of the Insurance Council of New Zealand, whose Fair Insurance Code commits insurers to handle claims fairly, transparently and promptly. Nine days of chasing, a report answered with silence, an end-run around the principal to the subcontractor, and a settlement posture that leaves the shortfall on the policyholder: readers can judge for themselves whether that meets the standard.

What We Expect

We are not hard to work with. We are hard to push around. Those are different things.

• Deal with the principal. Questions about an EEK job come to EEK — mailto:claims@eek.nz or our insurer line. Not to our workshops, and not via competing-quote shopping behind our back.
• Read the report. Everything asked on that call was already in it.
• Read the rate card before the invoice, not after. It is public and always has been.
• Keep callback promises. Twice in one day is not an administrative slip; it is how a customer loses his vehicle for another week.
• Remember who the insurer works for. The policyholder. Every day spent second-guessing a documented, warranted, published-rate repair is another day your customer is without his vehicle and paying storage.

We will put our documentation up against any insurer's assessment, on any job, at any time. If you want that conversation, you know where to find us.

EEK Mechanical · Claims: mailto:claims@eek.nz