Today ladies and gentlemen we will be discussing automobile insurance companies.
Merle Wayne Sneed has long advised folks to shop their insurance around. People usually stick with an insurance carrier for some irrational reason. They might like their agent, they might think changing is way too much trouble or and worst of all, they might mistakenly believe that their loyalty as a customer will be reciprocated. It will not.
The good hands will crush you like a paper cup, there are no good neighbors and cute amphibians will turn out to be poisonous. Loyalty is futile.
Insurance companies are in the business of getting you to buy their policies and faithfully pay your premiums. Then, just when you need them most, they become weasels. "That was no hurricane, it was water damage".
Sometimes they will drop you or jack up your rates for an arbitrary reason, such as your credit got bad. Other times it is because you actually made them pay and they aren't falling for that twice. Luckily for Arizonans, we cannot be canceled unless we commit insurance fraud or fail to pay the premiums. We sure cannot be canceled on a whim. Or so I thought.
Insurance companies are masters of playing games with the law. If they can figure out something in the fine print to screw you, they will. The Hartford, the official auto carrier of AARP and my company, is no exception.
The Sneeds and The Hartford, have had an amicable relationship for about nine years now. We paid on time and in full and made no accident claims. The Hartford also carries the insurance on our home and again, we always pay and they have not had to. What could go wrong? The Sneeds have been near perfect clients.
So here's what went wrong.
Longtime readers will recall that Son Sneed was accused of DUI about 18 months ago and was subsequently exonerated of that charge by the State of Arizona.
As a condition of resolving his situation, Son Sneed was required to take a medical evaluation, before his driving privilege was restored.
Son Sneed chose to surrender his license rather than have it suspended and take some time off of driving. He went to the DMV and voluntarily gave up his driver's license well before the deadline to do so.
Unfortunately for us, the State of Arizona still showed that Son Sneed's license was suspended pending medical evaluation. A fact we only discovered today while at the DMV.
The Hartford knew full well that Son Sneed lived in our house and was covered by another company. The Hartford's only stipulation was that Son Sneed was not a covered driver on our policy and that The Hartford would bear no responsibility for him.
Recently, Son Sneed decided to get the medical evaluation and try to qualify for a driver's license. His doctor filled out the paperwork and the State of Arizona cleared him to resume driving. Today we went and got his license. He didn't even have to take a test.
Since Son Sneed has no car to insure on his own, I figured that I would just add him to our policy with The Hartford as an additional driver. We are in a Catch-22 here. Our policy requires that The Hartford be notified of any license driver living in our home.
When I called them this morning, before we got the license, I explained the situation and was given a quote to add Son Sneed to our policy. I was told to call back when I had his new license number. I was completely upfront with them about the situation. The agent that I spoke with even checked with her boss to confirm the information she had given me.
This afternoon, when I called back with the license number, another agent told me to hold while he checked with underwriting about how to handle the change. After about ten minutes he returned to tell me that he had bad news. My policy was being canceled because Son Sneed had previously had a suspended license and he lived in our house. I was dumbfounded.
He never drove our cars or caused The Hartford any grief, but his mere presence is cause for us to be canceled. I asked to speak to a supervisor and after a wait of about 30 minutes a woman came on the line.
She was upfront in telling me that she had been checking Arizona law as it applied to my situation and that they would still be sending out a cancellation notice. But, if I was to sign a form stating that Son Sneed would not operate our cars and that The Hartford would not be responsible for him in any way, they would reinstate us. They would have outright canceled us, but Arizona law prohibits them from doing so.
Aren't they great? After an nine-year relationship, they are willing to do only what the law forces them too.
I asked if there was anyway they could cover Son Sneed, seeing as how they had to keep us? No way, no how. The nice woman suggested I give Son Sneed one of our cars and that he try to find insurance on his own with another company. That's a possibility but an expensive one.
So, the Sneeds and The Hartford are getting the big D. I spoke to a representative of another national company and they are willing to cover us all, including Son Sneed, for about what we were paying The Hartford. And since I was checking, I priced our our homeowner's insurance and found that I can get our house covered for two-thirds of what The Hartford has been charging us.
So, do not get married to your insurance company, they will break you heart every time.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
6 comments:
I would have been surprised, if I had not seen this situation: My early yrs at the paper in SF, I worked with kids/adults. One delivery person was a lady in her 70s at the time and she delivered in her car. She had stopped at a light, put the car in park, ran across the street and before she came back, her car hit the light post in the center of the road. She called the police etc, etc. In all her yrs she had the same situation as you, nothing had happened. They canceled her account. She later found out, through a letter from Ford, that there was trouble with the car slipping out of gear and needed to bring her car in for the fix, which she did. She brought the letter to her agent (previous agent) to get reinstated, to no effect.
No wonder we get cranky as we get older. Nothing makes sense! ; (
Glad you persevered!
I agree that loyalty is futile. Our insurance company treated us like suspects when our house got robbed/vehicle stolen. They were overbearing & They simply ripped us off.
Ha; don't even get started with health insurance! We're paying ourselves as we are self-employed, but can we afford to get sick and then lose our insurance? I think not! So we don't go to the doctor; it's a big treadmill on which we "consumers" run, while the insurers get rich.
Disgusting.
Bastards.
This is an example of bureaucracy winning out over common sense. You'd think you could explain the origin of your son's situation and why his license was suspended and that would be that. Instead, they're assessing your risk based on some formula or rulebook, never mind the details. Too bad there's no such thing as personal service anymore.
This is your best line ever: "The good hands will crush you like a paper cup, there are no good neighbors and cute amphibians will turn out to be poisonous."
If you have an "agent," then you're paying too much. Someone has to pay that guy to pretend to care about you. I signed up for the super-cheap car insurance through my union, and had it for years. I never used it. A week before I sold my car, I got a flat and tried to use the "towing service." It paid for the first 3 miles - the rest was on you. I called them from the side of the road and mentioned the big sales pitch I got when I signed up, in which they told me that they put $200 into a fund for me every year which could be spent on minor repairs, and they said they had never heard of such a thing.
They frequently sell policies from one company to another anyway, so you can't have brand loyalty even if you want to.
Post a Comment