Linas.P

That has nothing to do with key feature, although there is such feature on most Lexus cars since 2001 or so. However, I doubt you held unlock button for 5 seconds without noticing it, whilst also being withing ~50m from the car. This happens when your windows are not "initialised". Happened to me once, what was worse it was sunny summer day with about 30 minutes of freak heavy shower in the middle and windows opened exactly during that shower - just my luck! So the car was all wet. And also my master windows switch worked despite replacing battery, but it was definitely not properly initialised. Basically after batter is replaced, or disconnected and reconnected one has to re-initialise all windows. If this is not done then all windows can randomly open like that. Door should not unlock to be honest, but my bets are still on windows initialisation problem rather than somehow pressing unlock button for 5 seconds on the key. Below shows how you initialise all windows:

T-cut is not a true polish, I think it is what detailers nowadays would call a "glaze", basically it can remove some water spotting and oxidation, but does not have any paint/stain removal capabilities. Putting the wax on top also does very little here. Not sure what to advise you here - you can try clay mitt maybe, it should remove stain, but not scratch paint too badly (like clay bars). Other option is to get some actual paint polish and triple-foam pad and polish that area, but the problem here - there will be shiny polished spot in that areas and the rest of the car still scratched, so it will stand out like sore thumb. And doing entire car by hand would be extremely hard. To be honest, it is kind of hard to tell what you dealing with here from the picture, if it is really just water stain you may be able to clean in off with MF towel and vinegar. If it is really residue from oxidating aluminium, then it may need to be mechanically polished with polish. If it is just rain moving dirt on the car and forming such shapes then it may be the case of just washing the car. It does seem like there is excessive amount of white residue, especially coming from mirror housing, but it is very hard to say what it is, @J Henderson maybe right here, maybe aluminium frame in mirror is oxidising inside, but nobody would be able to confirm it without taking mirror apart.

T-cut (if you literally mean it) may be your problem here, you see - fake polishes don't actually remove much of the staining, they would just fill it with silicone and make it less noticeable, so when you wash the car, you wash the silicone and it seems like stain is back. If you would polish the stain properly and remove it, then it would not come back so quickly. Secondly, you don't need to wipe down it every week, that would just cause unnecessary scratching. What you need to do is to wash the car and blow the water from the mirror (as mentioned simply driving or accelerating few times can achieve it) and then clean the water than came out before it has time to dry on the paint and leave stains. So rather than every week, do it after very wash. Also I guess it may be normal - if your car is parked outside and very dirty, and then it rains, then there is not issue. Rain simply runs down the car, mirror base is kind of obstruction, so it runs around and then concentrates under, leaving kind of mark where it was running. As my car is kept inside I don't notice this perhaps. Generally speaking - if you dried and wiped the car clean after washing, there should be no stain on clean car under the mirror.

Wow- that looks horrible! I had my disassembled my mirror in the past and I can't remember it looking that bad. That is what I ten to do as well, just blast around the block after washing the car and park it and walk around one more time... and there are usually some drip around certain places - 1. is at the end of driver door 2. is this one from the mirror 3. is from the boot when you open it drips on rear quarters 4. is from the fuel filler cap. There may be few more on IS. But basically I just walk around and dry what has come out before it could dry and leave water deposits.

Honestly, Lexus would do absolutelly no preparation, I am not assuming I know. They would assume your car paint is "perfect", because the product is designed for new cars (even thought new car paint is usually nowhere near perfect) and their prep will involve washing the car (the part which I always ask them to skip during the service as they are just not good at it), then panel wipe (basically 70% isopropyl) and then application. They certainly are not hiring detailer to come over and polish the car, there is no way anyone would bother for £450. And when I said - they going to give it to their showroom cleaner... I was not joking either. This is literally what my local Lexus does - they have cleaning agency hired to clean the showroom, same guys wash cars, same guys would be applying the ceramic coating. No disrespect for cleaners, everyone have to do what they have to do, but car detailers they are not, even just washing the car they scratch it way more than even worse hand wash in my area. £1000 is a bit much to be honest, unless it is based on car inspection and your car is really rough. It used to be around £500 for "restoration detail", that is if your car was never detailed before. It would include few stages of polishing, the ceramic coating then costs £100-£200. Depending on area +/- £100. So we are talking ~£500-£800. If your paint is particularly bad, deep scratches all around, you are asking for stone chip removal etc. Yes they can price that on top, but usual price as I said should be around £650, then they wash your car and they may call you back and say "look here is the deal, now that we could see the car clean there are way more scratches etc. We can proceed with standard detail, but we may not able to take all the scratches in 2 stages, if you want to wet sand, and polish them out, then it will be extra X amount, else we do bet we could, but there may be some scratches left". My other guess - they may say "up-to £1000" as sort of the limit of how much it could cost without seeing the car, so ideally you should bring the car over to them for wash and then ask for estimate, because £1000 seems little bit arbitrary to me. P.S. - I have looked at few detailing places around me and it seems the price had climbed up a little bit since, so my estimates may be little bit 2019-ish. But even then I have found few places that would do 2-stages + ceramic coating for £600 on "Large" car. But seems generally prices have climbed ~£100, so you could say up-to £900 is realistic.

Yes - as far as I know aluminium bonnet cannot be straightened past certain point, on top of that it is damaged in such place where it isn't even accessible from inside, also they must not use any filler, as that is where the lock is, so basically bonnet flexes there and any filler would crack. I cannot say it is 100% not fixable, but I am 80% sure any decent place would say it needs replacing. So I would just come back and insist that bonnet is replaced. Because the last thing you want is for them to lob inch of filler on the bonnet and next time you try to close it it cracks. Also it makes no sense to save on such part. Replacement bonnet is let's say maximum £200. The expensive part is painting and blending the repair, the bonnet will require painting and fender will require blending, so there is at least £600 worth of painting involved. So this would be just counter intuitive to save £200 and then compromise £600 worth of job in the future. As for delivery, I tried few couriers and price comes to ~£50. So £100 for the part and £50 for delivery, in theory it doesn't matter as it isn't you who is paying for the part. It also matches what people are asking for them on ebay ~£100 and majority are collection only, but I have seen few delivering for £50. Option two - ask for cash settlement i.e. whatever they looing to pay to their repair shop just take in in cash. Obviously as long as that isn't £500. Because that then allows you to have some control on the process and quality of repairs.

Drying the car after washing usually is enough to avoid it. Obviously if there is water left in the mirror after washing and slowly drips from there and dries, then it will leave water marks. Rain water shouldn't do this, only ground water which is usually very hard in UK. In short - this is washing technique problem, I just wipe around mirror after washing and usually that is all it needs.

It is quite difficult without pressure washer. Basically for cleaning you need two key tools to use for cleaning are pressure washer for exterior and vacuum cleaner for interior. You can get around the pressure washer somewhat if you have "jet wash" close to you, that is what I used to do. Go there is more quiet time, maybe early morning or late evening (most importantly not during the day, both because it is busy and because you down want to be in the sun when washing the car). Then I would spray car with APC (all purpose cleaner - that works well as TFR/traffic film remover), wait few minutes for it to mostly soak all the dirt and then pressure wash the car, sadly you have to be quick, they usually only give like 2 minutes, 3 minutes if you lucky. But that is enough to knock down most of lose dirt. Then if nobody is waiting in the queue I would spray wheels with "bleeding" wheel cleaner (basically it is acid that dissolves rust), brush the wheels, tyres and wheel arches, then go over the wheels again with APC, especially around callipers (the APC is usually base, so it nicely neutralises acid in the wheel cleaner), go over badges, grilles, window mouldings etc with detailing brush and APC... basically to knock all dirt that may be stuck in small gaps. And then go over with pressure washer again. It is not ideal as it costs something like £4-6, for just couple of minutes with pressure washer, but that is better than nothing. Just one tip - never use the brush in jet washes, remember the first rule, anything that ever touched the ground should never ouch the paint... and that brush has been on the ground more times than anyone could remember. And once you knocked all lose dirt you can come back home and just continue all the steps with two buckets as before. But even doing "2 buckets technique" without prewash it will just cause more scratches than hand wash around the corner. Then you will need to consider interior cleaning, you don't need to be as careful in interior and there are less steps, but they are important as well. It is decent product, the problem is that for ceramic coating 90% of work is in preparation and 10% is in applying it. The problem is that for £450 Lexus will be skipping that first part which is 90% of end result. So it isn't just ceramic spray, it is professional product, perhaps not the best in the market, but decent enough. Problem is that it will look shaite if not applied properly and Lexus just going to give it to their showroom cleaner to apply and it will never look right. I can put Gtechniq ceramic coating for £40 anytime on somewhat clean car (because that is how much C1 costs), that is really not complicated at all, but it will look shaite, because for ceramic coating (that cures and makes proper had coating) in particular car has to be applied on car which polished to perfection, otherwise any scratches or old waxes/coatings etc. left on pain would be highlighted and just look even worse if car isn't polished prior. So £1000 I assume is for at least 2 stages polish, Gtechniq coating is just last step in process.

If still interested £100 posted. Washers with all hoses and clips, but no caps (they would be different on ISF anyway), parking sensors (2x in front) with all wiring.

Would be best to move back to GS section. Can't even find B2621/B2287/B2289 in repair manual, B2785 just advises to check LIN line, if line is good, then it advises to replace all connected ECUs in sequence.

This question really belongs in detailing section as there is not RC specific advice. Sonic Titanium is one of the easiest colours to clean, generally grey cars don't show dirt and scratches as much and metallic paints hide them even better (In this case almost pearlescent), so it should not be difficult to keep the car looking great. That said - I much appreciate your desire to take good care of your car, that is definitely good attitude to have, but I just want to warn you here. You can easily damage your car more than needed when detailing/cleaning if you do it wrong, it is very easy to cause so called "love marks". So the answer - unless you really want to dive deep into detailing, just regularly washing your car will be 90% as good as it gets. So to start with, you need to ask yourself a question - how much you really want to take care of it? You can certainly wash car yourself, but I can assure you that 80% of the owners would make more damage washing their car themselves than they would by just taking it to regular automatic or hand wash. In other words - for 80% of owners just taking the car to car wash every 2-4 weeks will be sufficient and the car will look good after 5 years of ownership. Will it have scratches - yes, washing = scratching, but that is just inevitable. If you really want to beat say handwash in terms of minimising scratches to the paint, then you need quite a lot of knowledge and experience. I would even say RC is probably wrong car to practice on... because it has a lot of small and trickly details, shapes and Lexus paint in general is very soft (so easy to scratch). Next question - do you own anything for washing at the moment e.g. pressure washer? How much you looking to invest int into the tools? and what you looking to achieve? Because my basic set-up would look something like this: Pressure washer, snow foam lance would be nice 2 buckets with grit guard 50 general purpose MF cloths 5 thick drying MF cloths 5 Window MF cloths 5 car wash mitts ideally MF or soft wool 3 wheel woollies 1 tyre brush Set of detailing brushes (usually like 6 in the set) 2 pressure sprayers Shampoo concentrate (Bilt Hamber has great concentrate, but others are aslo good Gyeon, Gtechniq, Koch Chemie etc.) 5L of APC, that is chemical that you can use basically for everything just adjust the concentration so just buy bulk and keep it (again Bilt Hamber Surfex HD or Koch Chemie GS are two of my favourites) Some protection - I would advise ceramic spray nowadays, unless you want to go into full ceramic, but that is next level-up (even something like Autoglym Rapid Ceramic would be fine for this, generally I avoid Autoglym and TrutleWax, but current generation ceramic sprays are really good) Glass cleaner (I use Koch Chemie spray, but Sonax is also good) Specialty items which you may need from time to time: bug remover (explanation in the name) glue and tar remover (explanation in the name) "bleeding" fall out spray (maybe useful twice a year to move have brake dust that APC can't remove) rust inhibitor (good product to prevent rusting, especially on brake callipers, but also suspension, requires application once every 3 years, but can be done annually) I get my detailing supplies mostly from https://www.in2detailing.co.uk (you can also use discount code DW10), but sometimes I find better price in Amazon, eBay, sometimes directly from Gyeon, Gtechniq or Dodo Juice (i2D does not sell their products). My cleaning routine would look something like this - pressure wash wheels and lose dirt from body if needed > spray wheels with APC using pressure sprayer > scrub wheels with woollies and tyre with brush > spray car with foam > spray with APC and agitate around badges and grilles with detailing brush of appropriate size > pressure wash the car again > then onto contact wash with 2 buckets (1 for shampoo and 1 for rinsing), dunk mitt into rinsing bucket, rinse well, dunk it into shampoo bucket and wash the car from the roof down. I like to use at least 3 mitts for this (1 for upper half, 1 for lower half, 1 around arches, bottom of the sills, bumpers etc) > pressure wash for third time > wait for few minutes for majority of water to run down spray panel with ceramic spray (most of them are formulated as drying aids and water spot removers), wipe with thick drying MF cloth then buff with MF cloth, go top to bottom and around the car doing panel by panel > clean the wheels same way with dedicated MF cloth for wheels Autoglym ceramic spray can be used on tyres, but you can also buy dedicated tyre dressing (something like Gtechniq Trim & Tyres, or Gyeon)> finally clean windows and mirrors inside and out. I would probably start with interior, but you have not asked about it and it requires separate explanation. As you can see - quite a few steps involved, but I would argue if you not doing at least that, then it is not worth even starting to wash car yourself. I guess the it is possible to buy just the ceramic spray (detailing spray) and after taking your car to hand wash finish some spots that they miss yourself, but then again you basically not washing your car, just finishing the details. Could it be done without pressure washer - yes, technically you can do it all with just 2 buckets, but then I reckon you will scratch car more than hand wash. When else... if anything that touches paint falls on ground, it goes to the bin, be it 80p MF cloth or £10 drying cloth or wash mitt, if you try to use it again you will scratch the paint all over. I tend to use MF cloths few times and the rotate them down (top half of the car first, then bottom of the car, then wheels and then maybe I keep it around just as a rag). Never wash car in direct sunlight (water spotting, dried chemicals etc. are not good).

Autodoc is good for generic parts, like brake pads, discs, air filters, oils etc. But they don't have any Lexus specific parts at all.

NO - that is opposite, you basically did washer delete, that is FINE. Because MOT does not know if your car suppose to have them or not. So if there are no washers they thing car came without them. However, if they are installed they have to work, because MOT will assume that is they are present then car should have them. So, they either need to be blanked out or even better is to just get the bumper without washers as you have. Involving your insurance was bad idea, now your insurance will go up by 30%, because you will have record of accident on your record (regardless whose fault it was). So you probably should consider that into your settlement. As for dealing with "trade" and claims, it is tricky. You have strong case there so they will pay, but if they stop cooperating (if they feel you asking too much, or quotes they themselves are getting are too much), then they may simply drag their heels for years and the only way to force them is court, which is years long headache. I assume you would ultimately win, but it is painful and also you can't claim legal fees (in small claims up-to 10,000), so effectively you have to handle it yourself and it is not at all straight forward. So it would be ideal to avoid it if possible.

Depends on part, if parts are already available at reasonable cost in UK, then Amayama, Rockauto etc. will be more expensive due to shipping e.g. carpets are £60 from LPD, so there is no point paying similar price +£20 shipping from UAE, or even more from Japan. However in other cases there are parts that costs £15 in Amayama, but £300 in UK, or they are simply not available in UK at all. For example gear shifter knob in UK is £298, in Amayama £60. Fuel tank strap is simply not available in UK in Amayama £12. I guess this is usual thing of shopping around for best price. No site is ever best price for everything forever. Also it seems since LDP started selling part in UK we certainly have better availability than before and some parts are reasonably priced.

I understand your point of view - they damaged it so they have to fix it... However, I also believe that at least secondary goal is to get the car fixed as soon as reasonably possible and at the price which is fair for both party at fault and at the same time does not leave you in worse position than you were before the accident. Paying £6.5k to fix bumper and bonnet on the car which it self costs maybe £5k isn't really fair amount. Even if the car wash is willing to pay that price, there is still no gain on your side if they overpay for your car repairs, however it is more likely to complicate the repairs as they may feel it isn't fair price (because it isn't) and then simply stop cooperating. And if they do stop cooperating then it will be very hard to change that (only via court). So at least in my mind it seems that seeking compromise would be best for both parties. In such case I probably would take the estimates for repair and say something along the lines - "look that is what it officially costs to fix the car, but we both understand this is unrealistic, instead let's agree you pay me amount X and I get the car fixed at reasonable price = win-win". What that "reasonable" amount would be is for you to decide, but let's just hypothetically say that repair cost is £2000, so I probably would ask for £2500 for my trouble. Then would fix the car for £1500 and keep the £1000 for future maintenance or some nice modification or upgrade, or just keep the money. The reason I am saying this is not that I want to sell the parts, as mentioned neither bumpers available really suits your needs as your car does not have headlight washers. The holes for washers could be welded/filled etc. (not doing it would cause issues in MOT, even if your car technically does not need to have washers, you could fail because they seems to be present but do not work). So the reason I am saying this is because I know how difficult is to force somebody to pay for repairs if they decide to be uncooperative.

Sorry, but I remain sceptical. There are some genuine information, but also a lot of purely political statements filtered trough PR department. No mention that they were basically negligent leaving CANBUS unencrypted and thus vulnerable to be attacked. The definition of world vulnerability- being susceptible to harm or attack. Which all the models listed are.

It would fit, but it does have headlight washers in it. To be fair same applies to bumper I have. In theory they can be patched by bodyshop (plastic welded, then filled/sanded). The quotes you got are quite high, when I had small dent on fender I also got quote of ~£3000 form Lexus, so I am not really surprised, but it is still a lot. My very rough estimation would be - new bumper, grille and bonnet, new bumper is ~£160, bonnet is ~£600, grille ~£200. Then it all has to be painted say £200-300 per part + blending to fenders, so 4 parts to paint. So £960 + £800. £2000 tops. And you can get used parts cheaper - I certainly would let mine go for £200 + pick-up (there is no way I can send bonnet), so you can potentially get it done for £1000.

Have you tried listening to it? For me it is horrible, but maybe I have different expectations that some, it is okey to listen to the radio, but when listening to the music it just lack all objective properties of good quality audio system - clarity, separation, highlights, base, vocals... Also it seems to lose accuracy above 50% of volume. I don't know if you have ever tried running speakers on amplifier which is more powerful and then above certain point you start getting distortions to the sound... so that is how standard system sounds past 60% of volume. Now 60% is certainly quite loud and many people may not listen for music that loud, but the sign of good audio system is that it keeps fidelity all the way to 100%. I had RC with ML and can attests that even at 100% the sound quality is as crisp and as clean as at 10%. Also if I compare it to standard system in IS250 or GS300, they can go probably to 80-90% and the only issue is that past 80% the base sort of fall off, so you can hear the sounds is becoming louder, but it is getting less and less base. This can be explained by subwoofer fitted in the car being weaker than the rest of the system and maxing out before full volume, but you don't get distortions or anything else. In short - if you going for test drive, then have a test listen, connect your phone and play music you like to listen at various increments and see how that sounds. For me it was unacceptable, I had the car for long test drive over the weekend (RC300h in particular) and it had the standard audio, and it found it to be unacceptable.

Alternator is dead. Battery probably is simply low, because alternator isn't charging it at all. Did you say it was changed few years ago? Even if you have dead battery (say 11V) when engine is running you should still get close to 14V, it may be slightly lower since the battery is so dead, but it should never be under 11V. In fact if you battery was under 12 by itself and it drops to under 11 when engine is running, I reckon alternator is not running at all and engine is simply running on battery. Math here is relatively simple - so let's say maximum charge in the battery is 12.8-12.9V, running the engine requires minimum of 0.3V, so if your alternator is outputting say 13.2V, it would barely charge the battery. First of all, I suggest you charge the battery again, confirm it is NO LESS than 12.4-12.6V. Start the engine again and if you get less than what you measured before starting the engine - it is 100% alternator. I am already sure it is alternator, but technically you should not even start measuring it unless battery itself is 12+. Second thing, you can measure the voltage between alternator plug and body ground. You will see thick positive cable going to alternator and on the alternator there is rubber boot with hole at the top, basically you can stick your positive probe into that hole and that is your alternator positive. The other probe you can touch to clean engine grounding point, anywhere you can get good ground. When engine is running, this again should measure 14V+. MAKE SURE - your positive prove is vell insulated and you do not touch positive probe to the ground, whilst touching the alternator positive terminal, because shorting that will result in blown combination fuse and many other fuses (basically a direct 150A short). Why do this? To confirm that your alternator is still connected properly. Because if alternator is reading 14.4V at the terminals, but under 11V at the battery then something isn't connected, it may even be blown fuse or something. So it would be good to know this before you start replacing the alternator which may be good.

They do not take a cut from you in non-fault accidents. As for insurance premiums going up for everyone - yes I guess that is true, but what is the alternative, to get shafted by insurance company in accident which was not your fault and take a fall for everyone else?

Don't take your insurance CMC... that is like worst thin ever. Hire your own CMC who stands for you, basically you don't care about insurance company - you are their client, they work to make you happy. Now you are right - insurance companies can also assign their own CMC, that is particularly true if both cars are insured by same insurance company, meaning they have conflict of interest and I believe they are even required to step aside... and then they have like these "partner" CMCs that really are almost just another department within insurance company. Don't use them. And that is why you use your own CMC. I don't even get my own insurance company involved. Because quite often, you will have to pay your excess upfront and then they refund it when they get paid, which I just don't want to deal with and it could take months. As I said in my experience, if there is no doubt about who is at fault the CMC even "pre-authorise" the claims... and you get paid right away... and they get that money reclaimed eventually, but that is not something you need to deal with.

Yes have all that.

Sorry - I have to take e few steps back to explain the premise. Basically in one of the goverment acts (it may even be regulation from EU) something like "Insurance Act 2012" (don't quote me on that as I don't remember the details) there was provision that third party companies can manage the claim on insurance policy. This was specifically in response to the fact Insurance companies are kind of "marking their own work" when it comes to assessment etc. As such this provision was added that if you disagree with insurance company valuation, you can go to another company and as them to carry out the claim management for you. As part of that provision third party companies (basically CMCs) can charge the insurance company for management of the claim (because in theory they doing all the work, that insurance company doesn't have to do), so all the cost comes from Insurance Company, basically there is no catch. That is why Insurance companies absolutelly HATE them. Again don't quote me on that but I believe the limit was something like £840 for that management fee. You don't have to pay anything IF claim was not your fault. As such if you in non-fault claim like OP, or like the two claims I had, then you can use CMC for free. If it is your fault then usually it isn't worth, because you have to pay the fees yourself for using CMC, unless the circumstances are expectational. So I don't believe it would have helped you in your case. Most CMCs that I know don't even take the claim unless they are non-fault. Also I know they take cut from personal injury claims and that is usually 20-30% from settlement amount. So those are your typical "no win, no fee" cases, but you have to pay them from your claim amount. However, for car damages they have that provision as mentioned and they charge party at fault insurance company and not you. Also - just one note, make sure you CMC is FSCS regulated, unregulated ones are borderline fraud.

First thing - get yourself a Claim Management Company. You did a right thing, you informed your insurance as per the policy, end it here, you don't need to speak with them ever again, because you only thing you going to get is that you going to get shafted by them. Writing it off, may not be a bad thing if they offer you fair deal. For example I have written of my 2008 car with 200k miles on the clock, but that was because they gave me Cat-N, I kept the car for £700 and they paid me £3,850 and then sold the car for £2,700. So basically I made £6,000 from the car that was worth half of that. And also I could have just kept it for £700, because it was just a scratch on the bumper. The year prior I did exactly that - they wanted to write it off-offered me maybe £2500, I said "no car is worth more, repair is does not cost £2800", they ended-up paying £1,400 for repairs and I kept the car without any record of it being involved in the accident. Basically, it got repaired. But all of that was only possible because I have leverage via Claims Management Company. In my case, both times CMC "pre-authorised" the claim, meaning I got paid right away, not freezing of excess, no waiting for TP insurance to pay out, I got brand new BMW to drive around whilst my car was being fixed (not shaitty tiny car insurance companies usually give) and I had a say in what my car is worth and what I want to be paid for it. If you dealing directly with insurance it will literally take months, sometimes years, especially if you disagree with their estimate it always takes extra 6 month every time you go back to them. With CMC it was simple - they got car appraised within days, then sent me the valuation, then I was like - "nope such cars is not £2875, this is SEL, this has sun-roof, this has ML etc. I want minimum £4000, here are few links from autotrader"... same day I got response "okey, we checked our database and for this model we have valuation spread between £1485, to £3850, so we can do £3850"... fine... done. Insurance company didn't even get any say in, the valuation was simply sent to them and they had to take it... and Car rental of £250 a day is ticking for them... so within 2 days insurance company accepted it. The case was solved within 1 week, car was repaired and on the road in 2 weeks. That sucks... I is probably not right, but I would have tried to accept renewal before reporting the accident, as such it would not have impacted you for another year. But yes Insurance companies sucks like that - regardless if it is your fault or not, the insurance will increase!

Banks indeed have strong IT security nowadays, problem as always is weak link between chair and the system. It is always human error and humans are not smart sometimes... most of the time really... I remember we designed our latest internet banking security and to this day it was never breached (8 years and counting), but we still had few frauds where it looked like client himself paid the money out, but in one case it turned out that they have allowed their kids to have access to to their phone (basically multiple fingerprints allowed and kids had their fingerprints registered), so they basically just transferred the money to their accounts. Other time I remember system alert triggered on suspected fraud and when we called back the client to ask if they intending to transfer £100,000 to ... it was some African country... they told us "no, but there is lovely chap on the phone who is fixing my macbook". Turns out they gave them log-in details and approved notifications to the phone for log-in, notifications about adding new beneficiaries etc. Obviously, there are multiple layers of security, hence these usually get caught in 2nd or 3rd layer of security, but you can always work around security by exploiting social engineering. The first one was the only one we didn't caught, but it wasn't really anything that we could do about it, client breached the rules, allowed unsecured access to their account and I believe fraud team even rejected their claim. The second one was the only genuine attempted of fraud which reached processing, but was caught by system rules etc. The other problem is what I call "friction in the system design/user interface". The typical anecdotal example - when you make password conditions too difficult to remember, then users will write their password on post-it and stick them to the screen! But it is literally true and has happened in practice. So good security should be relatively simple to use from user perspective to be effective... companies nowadays goes way overboard with security measures and promotes such behaviour. For example recent ruzzian intercept of German military call is exactly such example - the German secure communication channel was way to difficult to access (don't know the details, but turns our process takes like 15 minutes to authenticate with way too many steps) for the user under time pressure they just accessed the call via public link... and that was enough! It was legitimate webex link, the only difference it was outside secure environment and that was it! Should he be sacked for that - yes 100% (he wasn't), but also it highlights that their protocols for accessing secure communication are not fit for purpose.