The Insurance Company’s Loss

Dearest Rachel –

I know what you’re thinking; “insurance is such a boring topic, honey – why are you thinking you can make a day’s essay out of it?” And the fact that I’m addressing this question should go to show that I’m well aware of that very fact, to the point of putting those words in your mouth.  To be fair, insurance is supposed to be boring; it’s only interesting or exciting when something goes wrong, either with the unfortunate circumstances that require it to be invoked, or screw-ups on the part of the company or the policy, neither of which anyone wants to deal with, especially on any regular basis.

Now, you’ll notice that I don’t mention anything about any screw-ups on my part, which, while it might apply here, I’m not sure it does. Still, I’ll go into a little more detail as we go along, and you can make up your own mind about whether (and how much) I’m at fault here.

But before I do, I might as well retell a story that I’ve covered a few times in the past (if I’m not mistaken) that you’re going to see some parallels to.  Basically, we had several run-ins with our neighbors during our first few years in the house about their tree, which kept dropping branches on it.  At one point, it clipped a corner off of the roof by the yellow room, and damaged the roof over our bedroom at another.  But since it wasn’t our tree, we couldn’t do anything about it, and while I believe you asked them (nicely), there wasn’t anything we could do to force them to cut down or even prune the tree going forward, and so we had to live with it. Besides, our homeowners insurance covered the damages.

But of course, when a large branch fell through the middle of our bedroom ceiling, our homeowners’ insurance had had quite enough of us. After having to pay for this third repair to the same part of the house, they determined that we had had three strikes on us in less than five years; they decided to call us out.  Never mind that we weren’t responsible for any of the damage ourselves; we were just too big of a risk for them to continue insuring us, and they dropped their coverage. Ironically, of course, it was at that point that our neighbors decided to get rid of their tree on their own.  I don’t think it had anything to do with the damage done to our house, although it’s possible that at that point, they realized that the branches could fall either way, and cause quite a bit of damage, and they wanted nothing to do with that going forward.  However, having been dropped by our homeowners’ insurance company, we had to find another one; and that new provider hasn’t had to ante up for a single cent of damage.  If only our original provider had been patient, they could have more than recouped their payout to us over time.  Their loss, I guess.

This isn’t quite the same story, since we haven’t had to deal with any accidents or damage –or even a ticket, for that matter – but it does look like our auto insurance provider has well and truly screwed up in its own turn.  As you know, I finally broke down and got a new car a few months ago (and that the selection was based on my dad’s recommendation, as opposed to my own research), and as a result, I had to inform them of the change in what cars Daniel and I had in our possession, as it would presumably alter the rates paid every six months, as we do. 

After visiting what I thought was the insurance company’s local branch office (and being told they don’t actually handle insurance onsite), I gave a call to my agent, and she set me up with a revised policy, and quoted me a price, which I promptly paid. Granted, the check was cashed for an even dollar amount, rather than including the twenty extra cents at the tail end of the figure – I honestly don’t know if that made any difference. 

In any event, shortly thereafter, I received an invoice from the company asking me to pay the same amount that had been quoted by my agent; or if that was too much to pay at once, a fraction of the amount as a downpayment for the moment, to prevent the policy from expiring.  Of course, since I’d already paid the full amount, I assumed it didn’t apply to me, and I ignored the bill entirely, figuring I was already covered.

Well, yesterday, I got a letter from the insurance company yet again, and honestly, I thought it might just be some kind of advertisement or other form of spam mail from them – they do tend to do that a lot, much to my irritation – but for some reason, I felt the need to open it up and find out what they were trying to sell me on this time.  Much to my surprise, there was nothing inside but a check for nearly the amount I’d remitted to them a couple months ago as quoted me by my insurance agent, less about a hundred dollars or so – the nominal amount the company had ‘recommended’ I pay them if I couldn’t afford to pay the entire amount a second time as per their previous bill.

Upon checking in with my agent – since the check had no indication as to what it was for, and I didn’t want to cash it and somehow negate my coverage – I was informed that, since I didn’t pay the adjusted amount they asked for (never mind that I paid the entire amount of the new insurance premium as quoted to me), I had been dropped by the company, just like that.  No notification, no second chances; I (or more accurately, my agent) couldn’t even sign me up for a new policy.  I was officially persona non grata with them, as was left to find another place for auto coverage.

Which is what I have an insurance agent for; she looked around for other available coverage, and found one that would accept us, despite having just gotten bounced from our previous provider.  But here’s where things get funny; our new provider offers a policy covering both cars that is less than half of what I was paying my old provider – and closer to a third of the total – all for what I am to understand is the same amount of coverage. I’m actually rather chagrined; I should have switched providers long ago.

Granted, the true acid test of an insurance provider is what they can offer if and when something goes wrong; an accident, some kind of damage, that sort of thing. For the moment, though, I have no desire to test any of that, but just having to pay this much less is good enough for me for now. So yeah, goodbye, triple-A, and thanks for sending us what now amounts to a full year’s worth of premium money; your loss for dumping us.

That being said, we could probably still use your eye on us, and your best wishes. Thanks, honey, and I’ll reach out to you again soon.