What commonly goes unsaid in these conversations of insurance cost is the immediate disputes that occur with the provider.
Why am I paying tens of thousands a year to engage in an argument when making a claim?
I was once rear ended at a red light. I was knocked unconscious and the driver drove off. A few kind witnesses called police who took a report. They got half his plate imprinted on my bumper, but never tracked him down. I had State Farm, and I was even paying extra for the āuninsured driver coverageā. They said they couldnāt cover it because until they had another driverās information I was automatically at fault, even with the police report and witness accounts. They said it didnāt count as uninsured driver because itās possible the guy had insurance. I was flabbergasted.
In the end I had a concussion and needed to take time off work for recovery and my short term disability insurance ended up suing State Farm because they didnāt want to pay for my medical treatment. State Farm agreed to cover medical care but only if it was recorded as my fault and I paid my deductible. In anger I tried to switch insurance companies but found out they have a shared database and since it was recorded as a hit and run my fault, nobody else would take me. And State Farm jacked my rate up 30%ā¦
I realised in a similar, though less detrimental, encounter that true insurance comes in the form of dash cameras. For the equivalent of an insurance payment or two, a high fidelity video of the entire vehicle surroundings can be had.
Honestly though, with a few witnesses and half a plate, itās a surprise they couldnāt find the car that drove into you. Decerning the colour, and style of car, surely itād be only a handful of vehicles matching both the description and the numbers.
Iām sorry that happened to you.
Do you have any recommendations for dash camera solutions like you mention? Iāve been telling myself I need to get a dash cam but every time I start researching what to buy I feel like the market is a sea of wanky information and itās hard to tell what is crap and what is solid.
State Farm also screwed over a guy I know. He dumped their policy after they wouldnāt pay anything on his accident (much less dramatic than yours) where they had some kind of parking related crash with 2 of their cars at home. State Farm told him that he could not be covered for an accident with another car on his policy because he ācanāt sue himselfā so it sounds like they are only paying out when they have someone to sue about it.
You are not kidding!
I got a motorcycle and paid for insurance. When someone stole my bike and police caught the guy and put it in the impound, my scummy ass insurance called me to go see if itās okay? Like bro, thatās your job.
Then they said if I was willing to sign a contract that the bike was fine without allowing me to see it. I said no.
Finally they gave up and wrote me a check for the cost of the bike.
Not a motorcycle, but my car was hit (along with several others) by a guy evading the police. I wasnāt even in it, we were in a city and cars were parked along the street, and he came over a hill, ran a red light, t-boned someone, and then bounced against a bunch of cars down the street.
When I got the police report, I filed a claim with my insurance, which was the same insurance company as the criminal. They originally told me that, āThere were 7 vehicles involved in this accident, and other vehicles were damaged much worse than yours, so weāre not sure if his policy will cover all of the damageā¦ So weāll have to file the claim under your policy, youād just have to pay your deductible.ā
Absolutely not, I told her. āWell Sir, you have to unders-ā
āNo, maāam, YOU need to understand that your customerās inability to be a responsible citizen is NOT my problem, and I am NOT having my premiums go up, or paying my deductible, when I did absolutely nothing wrong.ā After escalating to a manager and giving her an earful while threatening to drop my policy with them effective immediately, they miraculously realized his policy would cover the damage to my car. Easy day, right?
Now, Iāll be honest: The damage to my car was completely cosmetic, but I was poor and could have really used some extra cash, hence why I was pursuing it. Well, brought the car in to be looked over by the insurance folks, and the assessed damage was like $800. Cool, I asked her for my check so I could go home.
āOh, well, Sir, you still have a lien on the vehicle, and normally we would send it to your bank, and they would tell you where to go and then pay the repair shop.ā
Oh, cool, well, thatās not what weāre doing, I already have a shop lined up, I said, but needed the money for the parts.
Big tall dude comes over, also an insurance employee, as the woman and I are going back and forth, and he chimes in and goes, āWell, Sir, yāknow, typically the bank holding the lien wants to handle these things, and, yāknow, if the repairs arenāt made and they repossess the vehicle, you could owe the repair costs.ā
My response: āHuh, fascinating. Sounds like a conversation between my bank and I, and with all due respect, I donāt understand who you are to have that discussion on their behalf.ā
āJust cut him the check,ā as he walks away.
I fucking hate insurance companies.
I had a shitty white Kia Rio that I wrote off in a snowstorm. I borrowed my dadās car to drive while I looked for a replacement I could afford, and after a few weeks my insurance said āwe paid you the coverage. If you donāt put a new car on your policy, weāll cancel it.ā ok, fine. I put my old junker (car before the Rio) on it - wasnāt even road worthy, but I had accident forgiveness on this policy and if I had to start over Iād get higher premiums.
I found a car a week later. Called the broker to switch the policy.
'we canāt remove this car from the policy unless we contact your bank first ā
What.
They claimed because I had bought my Rio with a bank loan that they couldnāt remove my junker without permission from the bank.
I argued with this person politely for 10 minutes, pointing out that Iād paid the car off 2 years prior. They said āwell Iāll need to check with the underwriter then.ā fine. I get a call back 30m later, same person. āno, we need permission from the bank according to the underwriter.ā
This pissed me off because I knew I was being lied to. āNow I know youāre lying to me. I have the cheque from the underwriter cashed in my account. They would not have issued it to me if there was any issue with the bank. I am not a customer of that bank, have not been for 2 years.ā
āwell sir, I need to confirm that with the bankā
āIf you contact the bank in reference to me in any way, shape, or form, I will sue you for breach of privacy and file complaints with every government office that I can. DO NOT CALL THE BANK. SWITCH IN THE NEW CAR.ā
They refused. I called back 2 hours later, got someone else. Told them I needed the new car switched in.
They did it, and a week later I filed a written complaint to the broker about the other rep, firmly underscoring the lying.
No idea if it was related or not, but the branch got downsized away less than a year later.
Anyway, fuck insurance companies.
hereās me, a grown ass adult with a car i paid off like 4 years ago - nothing special, a smallish commuter POS that gets 40mpg that i literally use to drive 4 miles to work and back.
i was paying about $630/year because i pay for a year at a time, and itād be almost double that to pay monthly, like what the actual fuck? anyways, a few months ago i get this email from the insurance company telling me āhey get ready your policy will renew in 3 months, be sure to double check your payment methodā so i log into my account and they were gonna raise my premium to $970/yr and there was literally no obvious way to see that they were gonna do that. it was a case of logging in, going through multiple levels of menus to get to the future policy, download a pdf of that policy, then view it offline.
well, iām pissed, so i call them to find out what the hell theyāre doing and why and they claimed itās because i had gotten a speeding ticket. of course, they had zero information to share with me about that speeding ticket - no ticket number, no date/time, no address, nothing. i sure as hell donāt recall getting a speeding ticket, and in any case, with a spotless driving record, youād think thereād be some kind of interfacing with me about it, but no. they claimed the ticket was real and iād need to contact my DMV to find out more.
so i call them, the DMV, and after some hassle, find out they have ZERO record of any speeding ticket. soā¦ back on the phone with the insurance company and they just wanna give me the shaft and the runaround no exceptions. i mean, iām pissed now because itās OBVIOUS fraud, right? Anyways, i get absolutely nowhere. so i tell them to cancel my policy and i woulda thought about contacting a lawyer about a possible case or something but, nawā¦
i still have the car, and itās parked being unused. I swapped to riding bikes to and from work, sometimes an ebike, sometimes a fixie, and iām the only cyclist on the road around here that Iāve ever seen and itās sometimes really sketchy. but i plan to ride through the winter, dry or snowy, i donāt care.
it can get complicated, because iām a single father, but honestly, fuck auto insurance, fuck cars, fuck car brain. we gotta make a stand at some point and I lament that we canāt really do it collectively.
Iām with you there.
Not too long ago, my company was informed by letter (as you should have been) of a price increase. I canāt remember exactly, but I want to say it was a 600% increase on the companyās rates. Thereās never been any claims on the policy, they just decided they could do it to enough of their clients, and probably enough would pay it that it wouldnāt matter theyād lose a bunch.
I understand the provide we switched to actually provides greater coverage for less than the original amount we paid the first provider. Unbelievable.
It wasnāt specifically for insurance reasons, but I got rid of my car after I noticed I wasnāt driving very far. Now we have a couple cargo trailers and we do the shopping and the errands just as easily and weāre saving tens of thousands doing it. We go through the winter as well, itās not for everyone but dress appropriately and have lights and youāll do great.
My job is shopping around for third party customer support vendors. One of their pitches I kept hearing was, āWe donāt lie to you about times.ā
And then they shared how their competitors were trained on a method of customer service where their goal was to get you to hang up as fast as possible to increase their velocity Metrics. So they would literally lie to you. Thinking it was a joke, I googled and yeah, apparently that was a REAL tactic done for decades.
Iāve had great luck going through an insurance broker for my insurance. The broker can be a mediator should the insurance company engage in sketchy nonsense, and can get you into some cushy insurance companies than only do B2B and donāt spend millions on consumer advertising. Plus brokers will know what insurance companies to go through for what buyers to likely get you the best rate
