Don't even get me started: Car Insurance

After yesterday's post, my dearest blog friend reminded me that she's an insurance agent, so I just had to type out all the gory details of my nightmarish experience to see if she had any advice. Now that I've typed it all out, I'll share it here so that you may learn from the mistakes.

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My insurance is nearly $200/month for the following reason(s):
I got in a car accident in January 2008, I went to the chiropractor twice. I paid a total of $120 out of pocket for those 2 visits. My claim adjuster (with Unitrin Direct) asked if I had any medical expenses, so I told her that I had gone to the chiropractor. She said, "Send us a copy of the bill and we'll reimburse you." I said, "Are you sure? Will my premium go up because of this?" She said, "No." When I moved to San Jose I let them know of my new address, and they said that my rates were going up a little because the neighborhood was a worse one than where I lived in LA, which is a LOAD of crap.

Because of that little rate increase my dad suggested that I shop around to see if I could get a cheaper premium. (Here's where my dad gets some of the blame.) I didn't really want to because I liked Unitrin Direct. They handled my accident claim and a prior vandalism claim very well (except for not disclosing the truth about paying the chiropractic bills, which I go into below). I don't know WHY I went against my gut, but I did and I shopped for new insurance. I got a way lower rate (through my new insurance agent, which I'd never had before), so I moved over to Mercury insurance. I paid the down payment and then a couple weeks later, I get a notice that they didn't know I had a bodily injury accident, so they have to raise the premium. I told my insurance agent, so he went and found me a better deal at Allied Insurance, which I accepted and paid the down payment for, but sure enough I got a letter from them a few weeks later with the same story... I had a bodily injury accident. So I argued with EVERYONE that it was not a bodily injury, it was a chiropractor visit because I was sore. No one cared. Still an injury, they said.

My agent suggested I call Unitrin Direct and request subrogation - I pay them back the $120 they reimbursed me for the chiropractic visits, and they remove the "bodily injury" classification. Nope, the medical claims lady says, subrogation is not allowed in California. I said, "Why would my California-based insurance agent tell me to ask you about it if it's not allowed??" and she just replied, "The bodily injury is in the California state records. Even if I take the money back, you can never remove the fact that there was bodily injury reported in your claim."At this point I was BEYOND PISSED and I wrote to my agent:

James:

I'm sure you can understand that I am not happy right now. I left Unitrin Direct with a 6 month premium of $855 because you said you could get me a premium lower than that. I understand the problem with Mercury, but I was under the impression that you would have confirmed that issue would not arise again with Allied Insurance, but here I have gotten a letter from them saying that "effective inception the 1/12/08 accident has been added to the policy" and the premium increased from the quote of $782 to $1,106.

I called Unitrin Direct and they cannot reinstate my previous policy because it has been longer than 30 days. The premium they quoted me just now is $1,107.90 for six months, which is just $1 more than Allied. I spoke with two people and they both said there is absolutely nothing they can do; the quote cannot be adjusted. So now I'm screwed and either way, my insurance premium has increased and I'm paying an additional $500 a year. Not exactly what I was looking for when I went shopping for a new policy. What can you do to resolve this?

Julie


Apparently he couldn't do anything, and now I'm stuck with a six month premium of $1,106. Shit. And that is why I had an absolute fit on Tuesday when I had a fender bender. All I could see was dollar signs.

Moral of the story: if you like your insurance company and you've been with them for a couple years and your gut says "don't shop around", DON'T!!