Insurance Issues

Reed didn't take a nap today, so he was pretty exhausted tonight. This was the best picture that I got before he fell asleep on my lap. So, I'll make you endure our insurance experience today.

All of my driving life and married life, we've used the same insurance company. Like their slogan says, "Like a good neighbor" they have been there. We have not had a claim with them, but they have always been very neighborly. The agents have always called and checked in on us and we have everything insured through them.

However, our experience in our current town has not been as neighborly. They have not taken the time to get to know us and I have never actually met our agent. During our Dave Ramsey experience, I have been checking into our insurance and realized that I needed to know more about how we are insured. I found that Abbey's life insurance wasn't up to date and I really needed to update our homeowners.

I have had several friends who have had excellent experiences with another agency and I called to get quotes. They were a little more cost efficient than our neighborly insurance providers, so I decided that we would change our insurance carriers. I did this with a little fear, because I always try to make sure that we are properly insured and there are a lot of what-ifs when you are changing from the only insurance carrier you've ever known.

Well, when we got to this new agency today to sign the papers, we were not greeted as I had hoped. We found two administrative assistant types who were very busy ... busy in conversations on their phones that didn't seem especially business like. After 10 minutes, they didn't acknowledge us and finally one of the ladies hung up. I was about to speak when she got up and walked away. She came back after a few minutes and asked if we "needed something."

I explained that we had an appointment with an agent and she went to get her. The other lady is still on the personal phone call she was on when we walked in. After another 10 minutes or so, the other lady comes out to tell us the agent is on her way. By this time, I decided that this was not the service we were looking for. Abbey and I decided to leave. Just as we were leaving, the agent came out.

I explained to her that I no longer felt that we would be changing over our insurance based on our initial experience with the front desk. She defended the assistants saying that she "hoped they were on a business call." I assured her that the calls hardly sounded like business and thanked her for her time. We walked out.

We then headed to our neighborly agency where we found them to be even more neighborly than ever. That was, after I explained to them how close I had just come to switching insurance. We signed Abbey up for her policy, got Reed a policy, and checked the status of our homeowners. It was a good experience and I expect them to be a little more neighborly from now on. BUT, I still didn't meet our agent!

Now, the moral of the story is ... FIRST IMPRESSIONS are really important, especially to us. You might miss a good deal of business due to rudeness. I'd also like to ask any of the front desk people who might be reading this blog, is it really that hard to tell the person on the other line, "Would you minding holding for a minute? I've got someone at my desk. I'll be right back with you."