Warning! Rant ahead. You may wish to skip this one. If so, I’ll understand. See you tomorrow.
So, why am I, once again, ranting about the insurance industry? Let me tell you.
Come the start of the year, our car insurance was coming up for renewal. When I got the notification from the insurance company, they had raised our rates and put us on a weird bi-monthly payment plan. We hadn’t had any wrecks, or traffic stops, or anything else that might justify the company to raise our rate.
I got on the phone with our insurer and spoke with our agent. He couldn’t give me a reason why our rates were being raised, nor could he adequately explain why we were now on the bi-monthly payment plan. He said he’d have to check with the corporate office and get back to me. Okay, fair enough.
We approached the renewal date (January 2) when I had to pay our new premium. I still didn’t have any answer from the agent, but they did say that the payment date moved to ten days later so we’d have some time to get an answer.
Over the next week, I didn’t hear back from our agent. I called multiple times. Every time I called he was either out of the office or with another client. The ladies at the front desk couldn’t get me any answers either. I went by the office, in person, twice during the time and couldn’t get anything beyond “we’re checking with the corporate office”.
We got to the Friday (January 9) before the premium needed to be paid. I still hadn’t heard anything from the agent. I figured if they couldn’t handle something this simple and get back to me with an answer, they certainly weren’t going to be able to help me should I have to lodge a claim for an accident or something.
I decided to switch car insurance. I discussed it with the wife and she agreed to the switch. I called up our previous insurer and reinstated our car insurance with them. They were even a little lower than our previous policy with the current insurer. It was too late in the day to call our current agent after getting the car insurance switched so I’d have to call him after the weekend.
On the following Monday, when the premium was due to the current insurer, I called their offices. Once again, our agent was unavailable. I talked to one of the ladies at the front desk, then told her we were cancelling our auto policy with them. She asked when we had gotten the new policy and I told her it was the previous Friday. This is because of the weird laws in our new state that you must have auto insurance at all times on your vehicles, otherwise they fine you. She said the policy would be cancelled as of then, and I figured that was the end of the matter.
Of course it wasn’t.
We still have our house insured by this company. We are coming up on the due date for the premium. I logged onto the customer portal of the agency to see what our bill was. A little further down the page it showed our auto policy, with a note that it was cancelled because of an unpaid premium. No, we cancelled the policy. We shouldn’t have anything to pay them any more premiums.
Once again I got on the phone to our agent. Once again, he was busy with another client. The Front Desk Lady told me that the premium was due on January 2, and that we owed them for the days between then and January 9, when we cancelled the policy. I explained to her that I called before January 2, that I couldn’t get an explanation for why our rates went up and the change to the billing period, and THEY extended the time to January 12. She said we owed them $60.11. She tried to get our agent but he was busy so she said she’d have him call us back.
He did call us back a short time later, and I went through it all with him. I told him we shouldn’t have to pay them anything because THEY EXTENDED THE DEADLINE. If it was going to be a problem I would have handled it back on January 2.
He said we still owed them for the seven days of coverage, that the extension was a “grace period” for making the premium payment. Well, they did not communicate that very clearly then. We were going to have to pay them so we didn’t get dinged on the “lack of car insurance” stupidity. He said he’d call the corporate office to see what the exact amount we owed on it, then call us back.
He did call us back about fifteen minutes later. He said we owed “fifty-five dollars and change”. He said he was going to pay it out of his pocket and get the paperwork going so we’d have things covered legally, but it would take several weeks. In the meantime, if we get anything from the Department of Motor Vehicles saying we didn’t have proper coverage (we shouldn’t since we had the other auto policy in place before this one got cancelled) to send it to them and they would make sure a Form FS-1 got sent to the DMV showing that we were covered.
Yes, it was nice of him to pay the fee. But there wouldn’t have been a fee if he’d done his job and gotten back to me before the first due date of the premium. Also, ultimately, the only explanation we got for the rate increase was “they (corporate) raised the rates”.
I would like to think this is the end of the matter, but I have a feeling that somehow this is going to come back and bite us in the ass at a later date.
I reiterate that the insurance industry is evil, does nothing but steal money from people, does nothing to help them, and gets filthy rich in the process. It needs to be completely dismantled and done away with.
End of rant.
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