“incentivize”? Well, yes & no. There is most certainly a degree of inertia when it comes to people and their insurance. Let’s face it, almost nobody gets passionate about it until the policy (which almost nobody reads) fails to give them what they think it should, and by that time it’s too late–their expectations ain’t gonna get met. As an insider I have to say that insurance policy language is weird. The only reason I understand it is because, frankly, I’m weird too. But the real problem is that people are people and not all of us belong in a customer-facing position. Many that work in claims are probably better suited for driving a tank through the Waco Davidian Compound for all the empathy they can muster, and it’s their profound ability to piss people off that ends up reflecting poorly on their employers and the insurance biz in general.
No. In my experience it just doesn’t work that way. Even when my performance review doesn’t go just the way I’d like it to, I can assure you that what I pay in claims doesn’t come in to the conversation–it’s NEVER, “Gee Inigo, why’d you pay for that” or “You seem to be paying claims based on advertised asking prices, but we all know that nobody ever has to pay the asking price for a car…” If your “nudge nudge, wink wink” CEO scenario were credible I, as the guy who pays the claims, would certainly feel more pressure to tighten my checkbook. Instead the pressure I get is to satisfy customers who have recently had something dropped in their lap that they don’t want in their lap, and make my company look like a good place to go for insurance. In fact, rather than hearing “don’t start paying those kinds of claims” I’ve heard, “You know, you can give the customer the benefit of the doubt now, or you can give it to them later along with the bad faith /punitive damages settlement.”
But it is true enough that upper management looks at the bottom line, but if they’ve got half a brain they know to stay away from the payout book when looking for some fat to cut. They look to operations expenses–which job market do they move to, do they lease or buy the company’s buildings and motor pool? Do they replace employees or do they spread the workload among those remaining, or maybe even restructure all or part of the organization?
As for the OP? The rep simply didn’t handle the situation well. Not all claims qualify for coverage and hail isn’t the kiss of death for a roof every time. But if you’re going to deny a claim, you’d best not leave the customer holding the bag until you’re sure they know why the claim doesn’t qualify. State Farm is a huge insurance company with reasonably good customer satisfaction reviews. You don’t get there by screwing your customers. It’s more likely, as all 3 houses were denied by the same rep while State Farm undoubtedly paid for others, that one need look no further than the rep. If the problem were higher up the food chain then you’d see a consistent pattern of denial of legitemate claims, and subsequently, people getting passionate about their insurance.
I’m not sure what you’re saying. All I’m saying is that it’s a bit facile to tell people “hey, if the insurance company gives you bad service, just take your business elsewhere.”
Start being really really generous and see if it gets mentioned in your performance review.
Dude…that’s just capitalism. Anyone with a business philosophy that counts on consumer apathy is going to get eaten by a ravenous gecko.
If by “generous” you mean interpreting advertised data like this:
and deciding I need to pay $8,000 for 1999 Cavalier with 69,000 miles in average condition without supporting that decision, then yeah, I’ll be crucified. But the same would happen if I decided to pay $3,000 for the same car without an explanation. Guess I’m not sure what your point is.
Shirley (I know I shouldn’t call you that), you keep reminding me of Robert Parr’s boss in The Incredibles . I’ll never assert that I know what goes on inside of every insurance company. In fact there are several (one in particular) that I’m surprised haven’t made headlines already and had their leadership executed at a Superbowl halftime show (State Farm, Farmers, Allstate, Geico and American Family are not among them). But you’ll never hear about them because their book of business is so small that the media won’t bother with them–there are not enough people who can be compelled to give a damn, who are affected by their actions, to make them attractive for media coverage. When was the last time you saw a news story about the overwhelming majority of satisfied customers? Those are called advertisements–networks don’t do those for free. They also don’t do 30 minute special features on the sun rose again! or that bubonic plague is still a rare phenomenon! or that electricity still works!
But if, for instance, you can sex up a one-sided story, credible or not, announcing that the biggest insurer in the country has been pulling the wool over millions of eyes and stiffing hurricaine victims, well! Hit it hard because you can count on having 20-25% of the whole country tuning in! Who you gonna focus your air time on? That’s kinda why I pointed to complaint ratios–people are crying the blues about getting reamed by unfair business practices, but the larger companies are generally not your biggest perps when you look at how many are happy compared to how many are not. SF has a good record overall, which I think means you didn’t get the service you were promised. For a good time I suggest you bottle up some wrath and give your agent an earful (you’re paying his salary, he’s painfully aware of that)–pretty good chance you’ll see some blood spill, or at the very least at least one claims adjuster will get some remedial hail training.
Just because insurance companies got sued over Katrina, it does not mean that they were not living up to their contracts.
Read your homeowner’s policy folks. Wind damage is covered, but water (flood) damage driven by wind or not is not covered. Water damage is covered by flood insurance that is only sold by the National Flood Insurance Program Linky
So you get a homeowner that had his house damaged or destroyed by a hurricane. Hurricanes are a combo of water and wind. His H/O policy pays for wind, but not for water. The adjuster has to determine what was wind damage and what was water damage. This is the Koboyashi Maru scenario for the adjuster.
Unless the adjuster rolls over any pays for everything (above what the company is obligated to pay BTW) the homeowner is probably going to be pissed.
Homeowner’s complain to elected reps. Enough complain, and and insurance commissioner files suit, even if the insurance company did everything by the book.
State Farm got sued over the '94 Northridge earthquake. When the dust had settled, they offered to come back and re-adjust any payments that the homeowner did not think was fair. In my case, they were so generous the first time, I did not say a word for fear they might ask for money back.
YMMV of course.
That works if your insurance company is set up under the EVIL, short-sighted business model, but not if you want a normal, long-term business. Are there folks in the business who do that? Sure, there are short-sighted people only looking out for themselves in every industry, but for the most part their employees are normal people. Sometimes you get a rotten apple.
From the fact that certain insurance companies are well known for being unreasonably stingy, and yet stay in business, I would say that you are wrong. In fact, I knew a guy who was a lawyer for a particular insurance company who used to joke that their motto was “We will pay no claim before its time.”
The point is that it’s possible to subtly send a message to adjusters that they need to be super stingy. Without explicitly telling them so. Perhaps that hasn’t happened in your case, but it’s possible it’s happened at State Farm.
Will say, when I look for a contractor to perform covered repairs, the ONE thing I look for is ability to work the insurance system. The contractor for my roof was able to squeeze out an extra $4k, which went into fence and siding work.
I have never been a customer of State Farm. I’ll tell you why.
When I moved to Colorado I decided to change from Allstate to State Farm and went in person to the local office. I forget exactly why but I went down to the office a week after sending in my application - I think it was to get a copy of my insurance cards.
“We denied your application.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t file this form.”
“I never got the form.”
“I know. We didn’t send it to you.”
“So can I fill it out now?”
“No. We already denied your application for not filling out the form.”
The only thing I like about them is that they support the arts by cutting checks to JK Simmons.
( And maybe I shouldn’t even say that as when he walked past me in NYC he was looking at the ground, scowling and taking to himself through gritted teeth. )
Well, yes & no. There is most certainly a degree of inertia when it comes to people and their insurance. Let’s face it, almost nobody gets passionate about it until the policy (which almost nobody reads) fails to give them what they think it should, and by that time it’s too late–their expectations ain’t gonna get met. As an insider I have to say that insurance policy language is weird. The only reason I understand it is because, frankly, I’m weird too. But the real problem is that people are people and not all of us belong in a customer-facing position. Many that work in claims are probably better suited for driving a tank through the Waco Davidian Compound for all the empathy they can muster, and it’s their profound ability to piss people off that ends up reflecting poorly on their employers and the insurance biz in general.