Insurance Jumped Up For An Interesting Reason...

LEXIRX330 · May 11, 2011

Unfortunately, I have found with insurance company there is no value given to customers who have been loyal and cost the company Zero in claims. They arbitrarily raise you, or keep you at a set price even though your vehicle depreciates.

I found out this the hard way, when I had a legitimate home claim (and my vehicles happened to be with the same company) and I was completely getting the shaft from the claims adjuster... long story short, I got the home insurance policy cancelled along with the claims request... and in doing so, shopped around.

The company I swapped my home insurance too, I asked them if I could also swap my vehicles since it was easier to have one policy, one company and everything covered by the same company. I had them quote me for my three vehicles. When they quoted me, I thought there price was per vehicle and the 1st vehicle quote given was for my BMW M5, when in fact, their quote included all three vehicles (and I thought it was only for the M5) was LESS than the cost of insuring just my M5 with the "other" company.

So, in the insurance game, it doesn't pay to be loyal and complacent because if you think being loyal gets you anywhere, let me tell you the insurance companies "goal" is not to satisfy you (in a claim) by any stretch of the imagination. So in the time of a claim, they will do everything to save, so my advice is the same to the end user. Screw them, because in the end, they WILL try to screw you if given the chance.

Now, as a rule, every couple of years, I call up other Insurance Companies... get them to quote me (comparing apples and apples, of course) and if they are "reasonably" less... I do not even call back the present Insurance Company, I just Change.

Cheers,

LormaD

That's funny I just had a guy come in my office today that got a $367 rate decrease on his policy because of his tenor. You have no idea what you are talking about. Sure you can save money by shopping around different insurance companies...we do it for people all of the time. But if you think loyalty with an insurance company doesnt mean something you are grossly mistaken. I had a guy that thought the same come in my office that had switched to Progressive Direct from State Farm. He had saved about $300 every 6 months. Well he had a claim and Progressive tripled his rate from what it was. Guess what his OLD State Farm policy had an accident forgiveness feature included in it…because he had been with them for so long. I was able to save him some money but there is no way I could get the rate back down to what he was paying with State Farm because of the new claim. I have seen situations where companies have reinstated policies that have canceled for a customer oversight, that would have cost the insured loads of money in fines from the DMV, and force placed coverage from lien holders…do you think the companies do that for someone who has been with them for 3 month or for someone who has been with them for years. I am an independent insurance agent and I have contracts with over 18 different carriers. As far as your claim experience well it is a shame that you had a bad experience. Did your agent offer to help? No one is EVER happy when a claim occurs…so most people are already upset to start with. Insurance companies have to file their rates with the STATE that the are doing business in…if they want to take a rate increase then the state will have to approve it so no they dont just arbitrarily raise your rates. (this is at least the case with the states I am licensed in and to my knowledge it holds true with all states)

And let me tell you… that your one experience with your bad claim experience makes you the expert on ALL Insurance CLAIMS and companies. And now we all know that insurance compaines dont care about their customers at all. Thanks for your brilliant insight!

RXREY · May 12, 2011

The reason that I used the word "Arbitrary" is that there was not ONE explanation with my bill. I had to call and keep getting bounced around until I finally got a person on the phone that could care less that I was annoyed. I even said, "Listen, you,not the you that is manning phones, but YOU, you drive, you are a person, how would you feel if this happened to you without an explanation?" . I finally got a little bit of humanity out of the kid in that his voice changed and softened...but he is being recorded so it's not like he would say something like,"Yeah dammit, lets take the man down!", like in some movie in my head..... So I now have a different company and pay a little less..but still a lot. Now I also have a person with a phone number to HER office if I ever need anything explained to me. All I want is to be acknowledged.....Thanks for all of the great info on this post that I started. Rey in very expensive, LA...but it's my home and I love it here.