Is there really that much of a difference?
Long ago the insurance company was your friend. I just love the ads today about what friends they continue to be. Oh yeah? Well no. They admit it’s very harmful for you to make a claim because your reputation with them will be permanently blackened. You are shamed if you make a claim. When there’s water damage in your home, no fault of your own, which necessitates rebuild in a bathroom don’t even THINK of making that claim. They will, as they did with me, give you $1,000 which doesn’t begin to cover the damage and they will make sure you can’t get insurance again — or they’ll make your rates soar. Why? Because you naively thought you were insured.
They counsel you, “Don’t ever make a claim unless it is catastrophic” — as in your entire house needs replacing because it burned down.
Now the first thing you think of when something has gone wrong is not calling your insurance company but calling a lawyer to defend yourself against them. Does this sound strange? It does to me. Believe me, they are not your friend; they are your enemy from whom you need to hire a gladiator to defend yourself.
I once had a roof damaged severely by hail. Stupid me, I called. Liberty Mutual (with whom I had 5 ongoing policies) said, “Oh that’s your second home. You are not covered. Had it been your first home you would have been.” Stupid me for assuming I was covered.
They must hire entire “How do we get out of it?” departments and pay those guys a rebate when they figure out a new loophole. So the corporate funds go to the con men.
My dear girlfriend called me one night because of water damage in her roof. She could hardly speak straight. Trained in recognizing neurological problems, I was alarmed and feared mold damage as some molds cause neurological impairment. I called her insurance company because she was too incoherent to do so. Twice. Luckily, I emailed them twice also. Cincinnati Insurance. (I remembered them from a time 10 years ago when they defrauded me and would not give back the $1,000 I had overpaid. They just kept it.)
Guess what they said in one of the myriad attempts to get out of paying anything. “No one ever called us.” In addition they said, “We don’t believe your doctor that this is real despite his written report.” She had to hire a lawyer…par for the course. Business as usual.
They are experts in dishing out more misfortune.
Added to what happened is DREAD. Of them. And dealing with them. When I had the roof problem, I asked for an insurance man to come out. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “Just asking for me puts a ding on your record.”
Has this become a monopoly with power they should not have over every citizen? Or is it just the normal fallout from the rampant corporate greed embedded in our country.
Oh, here’s another great one. Medical insurance. I remember that BC/BS would not treat an old woman’s eye when her vision could have been saved. The BC/BS con men proposed, “She has another eye.” This is a true case.