# Esurance is a bunch of God damned thieves. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 8, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681 "2010-03-08T01:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/21 "2010-03-08T22:32:30Z")
As for ‘just stop paying’, sure I have. Very easily and with no remorse or consideration when the product is very specifically purchased and paid for for a set period of time, like an insurance policy of any kind. I’m only paying for your service from date X to date Y, _which is spelled out in the policy_. You can pretty much assume that if I don’t make the payment for period Y to Z, then I’m no longer your customer. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/22 "2010-03-08T23:01:58Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You can pretty much assume that if I don’t make the payment for period Y to Z, then I’m no longer your customer. Plus, I wonder if there were a car accident and they try to make a claim on the policy they are being billed for, I wonder if the company would pay or not? They can’t have it both ways and I bet they wouldn’t pay out the claim if there were an accident, so they were still billing in secret for not even providing a modicum of a service in return. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/23 "2010-03-08T23:12:42Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > Maybe. Or maybe not - Wells Fargo charges for on-line bill pay, though the banking part (checking balances and what not) may still be free. (WF loves their fees, yes they does.) US Bank still has free online bill pay, so that’s what I use. The only automatic payment I have set up is to my mortgage, and that’s set up through US Bank, not the mortgage company (meaning I set it up and authorized it, and I control whether and when it’s taken from my account). I use Wells Fargo, and they don’t charge me for on-line bill pay - which is, as you say, allowing companies to withdraw money each month on my say-so. The electric company has either automatic deduction or paper - we go with paper, for the reasons mentioned. Credit card companies like to set the default payment to minimum, not full, sneaky bastards. Does anyone know if this is the default for automatic payment? Another reason not to do it if so. Odd thing about Wells Fargo. We have or mortgage with them also, but never pay on-line since they have no on-line way of increasing the principal payment. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/24 "2010-03-08T23:19:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Odd thing about Wells Fargo. We have or mortgage with them also, but never pay on-line since they have no on-line way of increasing the principal payment. You might want to look at this again. Our mortgage is with WF, we get notices online, pay online (not automatic, at our trigger) and we overpay the principal each month. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/25 "2010-03-09T00:41:24Z")
Every auto policy that I’ve ever seen has an expiration date, and states that it renews if and only if the company sends a renewal notice and a bill, _and if and only if_ the customer accepts renewal by paying the premium. I’ve never heard of a customer being liable for automatic renewal beyond the expiration of the policy. I’ve never heard of an insurance company even _wanting_ such a thing, since it opens them up to paying claims for deadbeat customers. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/26 "2010-03-09T01:19:11Z")
Hell, I did this with a _porn site_ once, and even _they_ didn’t try to pull this on me. I generated one of those limited-use “shop safe” credit card numbers and used that for them; once the next month rolled around (yes, my account with the site was even set to auto-bill :p) and they couldn’t deduct, they closed the account right away without any prompting from me. So if I were the OP, and the insurance company told me _I_ couldn’t cancel my ex-wife’s policy because _I_ wasn’t primary, but then come to _me_ TWO YEARS LATER and just went and withdrew all of her back payments from my account, I would find that seriously unethical and unfair. I can’t cancel it but I have to pay for it? GTFO. How can that be legal? > [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > I’ve never heard of an insurance company even _wanting_ such a thing, since it opens them up to paying claims for deadbeat customers. This seems like a very good point, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/27 "2010-03-09T01:53:42Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Every auto policy that I’ve ever seen has an expiration date, and states that it renews if and only if the company sends a renewal notice and a bill, _and if and only if_ the customer accepts renewal by paying the premium. I’ve never heard of a customer being liable for automatic renewal beyond the expiration of the policy. while this is undoubtedly true for a one-to-one relationship between an insurer and a policyholder, it may or may not hold true if you go through e-surance. you may be unwittingly entering into a separate agreement with them (i.e. they are more than just the insurers’ agent) for continued payment of premiums. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/28 "2010-03-09T05:59:10Z")
I always figured that if I missed a month’s payment my insurance carrier would drop me like a hot potato. I have a feeling that is what your’s would have said if you had tried to make a claim in that period. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/29 "2010-03-09T09:42:07Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Why the fuck would you figure that? You thought the company would go “Hey, we can’t get their money. We should probably assume that they want to cancel the policy, even though they never said anything to us to even hint at such a desire”? > > Is that how you normally cancel services? Just stop paying them? For car insurance? Yes. Would not hesitate, I have changed insurers twice in the last three years, each time I made the change when the policy expired, and did not officially inform the insurance agency. As, ya know, it was for a fixed term. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681/30 "2010-03-09T16:15:14Z")
**Voyager** , I believe that Wells Fargo has free online bill pay for certain levels of accounts or for employees. (Full disclosure: my brother-in-law works for Wells Fargo, and it’s because he’s an employee that his bill pay is free. And that’s why he uses it. Even he admits that if it wasn’t, he’d probably bank somewhere else. He’s also the first to admit that WF likes its fees.) For the lowest levels of accounts (the “free checking” ones and such like), it was $4.95/month. Aha! And now that I look - good og I’m lazy - I see on their website that it’s free if you have an eligible checking account or keep a combined minimum account balance of $5,000. They say that most customers qualify for Free Bill Pay. However, if you don’t qualify, it’s free for two months, then $6.95/month thereafter. I changed banks when they instituted the $4.95/month charge - US Bank doesn’t charge. And it also lets me overpay on my mortgage, too. I’m sure WF would let you do this; check the pages carefully. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/esurance-is-a-bunch-of-god-damned-thieves/531681.md?page=1)