Pleasant surprise from my insurance company

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I have had my auto insured with the same company for the past 10+ years. All that time I had a reasonable relationship with them, things went well, nothing untoward.

This year I had a rash of bad luck, and two accidents that really required a lot of body work; one in April (on my way to the Cologne gathering – the people who attended the Cologne dopefest last April will surely recall the state my poor car was in) and another one in August. One of those things. Fate or something.

Well, about a week ago I received a letter from my insurer. In a rather blunt way, and using rather condescending language, they were notifying my that my “pattern” of claims would simply Not Do ™, and warned me that they might decide to stop covering me, damned horrible Sunday driver that I was… If I had in fact had those accidents, of course – Who knows whether I am lying through my teeth and nefariously reporting fake accidents for whatever reason? (this last sentiment was not explicitly mentioned, but you could read it “between the lines”)

To say that I was miffed when I read this letter is the understatement of the year. I mean – I have been their client for 10+ years, I have not had any particular big trouble in that time… And, my previous decade of being a reasonably OK driver notwithstanding, two accidents in a few months somehow trigger this nastygram.

The next day I was preparing a suitable reply to their letter, honing my powers of sarcasm and righteous wrath to the max, when I got a call from them. It was their representative, the person with I had always dealt with in the past.

He was calling to apologize. He said that they had sent a letter and that they realized afterwards that it was too nasty and that they did not mean it. That they had no complaints whatsoever about my behavior as a client, and that he was calling to personally apologize to me on behalf of the company.

Well, I must say that this is the first time something like that had happened to me…

But there is more – Yesterday I received a personal letter expressing again the company’s unconditional apologies, and reassuring me that they had no complaints whatsoever, and that it was their fault for sending such a nasty communication earlier, etc. etc. etc.

It… Eh, it felt kinda nice. I guess that they have mollified me enough to keep my business.

Anybody else here has had something like this happening to them? Some company they are clients of, or are making business with, fire off some communication blaming them for something, or threatening them with stopping their relationship with them, but then they backpedal and apologize.

Just curious! :slight_smile:

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Underwriting underwrites and produces -grams according to company policy set by muck-a-mucks with thorough knowledge and legal advice pertaining to how to stay in line with Department of Insurance regulations and procedures. Big picture folks.

Agency sells insurance and polishes relationships to keep the money coming in.

However you might feel about it, heed the underwriting letter. Apologies like you received pave one of the fastest paths for employees out of agency, and do not alter the company’s responsibilities and rights when it comes to policy cancellations or premium increases.

It’s cold, but it’s also contract law. Despite all the ads from different companies assuring you they love to develop warm fuzzies, the base of it all is cold, black and white, contract law.

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  • missed edit -
    Upon reread, it’s not clear whether the letter was generated by agency or underwriting. Feel free to disregard the previous post as you like. Which you were free to do anyway, ya know.
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Sorry, English is not my first language :slight_smile: Sometimes I am not clear when expressing myself in English.

I do not mind the premium increase (I know it is one of those things that will happen when you have an accident). I would not even have minded if they were to have said, in a neutral and matter-of-fact way, “you know, you should be more careful because we might have to let you go if you keep having accidents at this rate”. What pissed me off from their first letter was the tone itself, which was accusatory, confrontational and you could even say patronizing. I felt that it was not warranted, in particular because I had been a good client for 10+ years, without any particular problems, and it was only because of very bad luck that I had those two accidents within a few months.

The apology letter I received was from the insurance company itself. So I guess that they realized that the tone of their first communication was not appropriate.

The fact remains, of course, that I will have increased premiums. But I accept that. I will just have to keep accident- and claim-free for a few years and, if lady luck keeps by my side a bit, I will be back to where I was.

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Too big for an accordion, too many angles for a car.

The closest I’ve gotten have been:
very recently, the agents for whom I was working at the time chose to implement their new web-based reporting tool on what was to be my last month on the job. Saying it was poorly designed and implemented is a British-level euphemism. Accounting’s replies to requests for clarification dripped with snark; my agent’s letter telling me to just send him the usual and he’d process it included “you’re one of the few people who haven’t used any four letter words, and all your complaints and commentary have been perfectly reasonable.”

And a failed advertising campaign. One year, I was at my parents’ for Christmas and I received a… letter. In heavy pink paper (well, not even properly-pink, as it was pink on one side and white with pink showing through on the other), in a heavy pink envelope, typed, unsigned and dripping with a kind of sentimentality that had me holding the thing by one corner, arm fully extended, and answering my mother’s attempts at figuring out who my secret admirer was with claims that “it can’t have been him, or him, not him either… any of them know the only thing on which I like this shade of pink is cotton candy!” (The candidates she came up with were former classmates I’d run into).

A few days later, I got a second letter from my secret admirer, which turned out to be the Fiat Cinquecento and wouldn’t I come give one a try? Uh, no thank you, I don’t have sex with cars, not even in cars, and anyway a Cinquecento would be terribly uncomfortable for that, they’re on the small side. And boy was I glad I’d been able to prevent my mother’s intended phone calls to the mothers of the men she’d thought of as possible candidates…

And the very next day, a letter from Fiat apologizing for any damages caused. Apparently Italian women had found the whole secret admirer thing terribly romantic and gone to try Cinquecentos in droves, but Spanish husbands (common law and otherwise) had Very Much Not. There had been at least one fight which ended up in the hospital. We may be family but we’re each our own brand of crazy, eh? Let’s not confuse the cousins prego!