Stay Away From Esurance!
Update: Esurance Screws Us Again!
Just a word of warning ... do not be swayed by clever advertising and promises of convenience, nor by a company that is seemingly "high-tech" and "net-savvy". Service is what matters most in an insurance company, and I've learned the hard way that Esurance completely fails in that regard. Being able to buy a policy and print insurance cards without ever talking to a human being is nice, but just about everyone offers that now.
The short story is that very soon after buying my new car, I was involved in a minor accident. It wasn't my fault, but to keep my premiums down, I wanted to handle the issue privately. Unfortuantely, the other driver was in a company car, so that wasn't going to be an option. Before calling me so I that I could deal with it personally, they called Esurance so regardless of whether or not I was filing a claim, Esurance was involved. After going through all the rigamarole (paperwork and phone calls) to determine fault and whatnot, I stop hearing anything at all. Admittedly, because of my schedule, I wasn't following up as fast as I normally might. Eventually, I started getting collection notices from the other insurance company, and when I finally got a response from Esurance, they told me that they had denied the claim. I got them to put the other insurance company on hold while I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
Turns out that when you buy a new car, you only have 14 days in the State of Washington to convert your insurance if you did not trade a previous car (trade-ins are automatically converted). My accident occured on day 17 ... I was extremely busy with work and school, and just didn't have a chance to turn it over. I was also told by my dealership that most insurance companies will give you 30 days grace, so I wasn't aware that I was out of time, and there wasn't anything specific I could remember in my policy that stated otherwise. Either way, I updated the insurance and got the new car covered. but Esurance was not going to budge on the 14-day technicality. OK, that's reasonable, if not a bit of a pain. I decided to just settle the claim personally with the other insurance company and be done with it.
A couple of weeks later, we get a notice from the loan company on our car telling us that we are technically in default on our loan because we were not carrying insurance. When I finally got to the bottom of it, it turns out that Esurance decided to drop my car (not my wife's) without so much as a letter to that effect. Washington State has mandatory insurance laws as well, so now because they didn't notify me, I was breaking the law. I was pretty pissed about the whole thing.
Today we switched to Progressive, and the process was flawless. We're paying significantly less than we were with Esurance (even after the accident) for comparable coverage, and Progressive has "no drop" provisions that promise that they will not drop you for anything except deliberate fraud. Progressive had all of the same convenience features that esurance had, but far better customer service. I'm hoping we'll never have to find out how they handle a claim, but so far, the experience has been far superior to our issues with Esurance.
The kicker, and the reason why I decided to throw this out on the Internet, was that they made us sign a cancel request and fax it back to them, specifically because of the insurance laws in Washington. They can drop us on a dime, but we have to jump through hoops to cancel? The best part is that when my wife called to cancel, the rep asked why. Annie told them that they got beat badly on price, and dropping my car without notice really pissed us off. The rep said, "I don't blame you, I'd cancel too." Well, at least their customer service is honest.
7 comments:
Hey, it's Angela from UWB. Sorry to hear about your troubles...I have had my own.
My stupid problem was with Geico... I called to get the student discount and boy was that a mistake. They told me that I hadn't been with them long enough.... it had been 4 years. Then, they said that my account would have to be reviewed by upper management... BS. THEN they said that I had to be over 24 years old to actually get the discount. WTF? I clarified this by repeating it to the person on the phone and they said yup that's right.
Anyway, I also switched to Progressive and found that I saved about $60/month and it was hassle free.
I am sorry you switched to Progressive. We also were looking for a "tech savvy" insurance that would make our lives easier and had Progressive. My husband and son were rear-ended by a drunk driver and totaled our car (thank God they were not badly hurt). At first it seemed Progressive was going to work out great for us, then they decide that even though the car is totaled we would not be able to get what we owed on it, plus we also had to pay the deductible. The claims adjuster said not to worry though, because they would go to court on our behalf and ask for a judgement against the drunk driver that would cover our deductible - I was so relieved! Then, we find out that Progressive doubled our rates - even though the accident wasn't our fault. I called several times to find out why, only to get an agent on the other end hemming and hawing and not ever able to tell me exactly why the rates changed. So I canceled our coverage and went with another company. We then get a bill in the mail for money owing, even though the policy was canceled and technically they owed us the promised deductible amount. The long and short of it - we were screwed with our car loan, we were screwed over our deductible and we were screwed with the policy payment and ended up having to pay even more when they sent it to collections. Progressive is a scam and I will never trust them again!
I use to work for Esurance at their customer victim office in Sioux Falls, SD. I could tell you the reasons why you got screwed, and how much they make each year by screwing customers. Screwing customers is very, very profitable. Lots of chumps watch a cartoon ad, and go on line to buy BS. Tell everyone not to give Esurance their card numbers.
We were hit by an idiot with the PA state minimum of $5000 coverage with esurance. He was at fault, and pushed us into the car in front. Esurance refused to pay for a rental car, and the garage our car was towed to held our car hostage for 2 weeks, until someone coughed up &700 cash. It is 8 weeks and we still do not have our car back, it had nearly 10k worh of damage, front and back, and we have not been reimbursed for the rental car we had to get and now owe the body shop our $500 deductible for an accident that was not our fault. Esurance messed us around, refusing to accept responsibility, then setting up a rental car for us, then retracting it and trying to get is pay for the day of use, not returning phone calls, taking ages to get an adjuster out to look at the car and not communicating within their own company etc. We have nationwide, and they did too little too late. Very cheesed off. I prefer to be hit by a Geiko driver, at least they were fast resolving the issues!
Esurance/Assurant Health/Time Insurance Company! All company's that make promises that they don't keep...STAY AWAY...BUYER'S BEWARE.....Insurance is designed to tranfer the risk from you to the carrier and you do that buy being accepted and paying a premium on method of payment. These multi million dollar companies hide behind fancy words, clause's and in "outlines of Coverage" and the actual "Policy" that they never send you after you have payed your deposit and have been accepted. After they deny your claim and change your life forever and when I say change your life; they change your life as you knew it to a complete nightmare. If you have had similar issue's you must talk about because if you don't, then somebody else will make the same mistake that I made. STAY AWAY FROM ESURANCE/ASSURANT HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY/TIME INSURANCE BUYERS BEWARE!!!!!!! I know I am not the only one, you can make a difference!!! Seattle, WA
STAY AWAY! Esurance-Time Insurance - Assurant Health. I ran into similar problems, they said they would pay a claim and then when it came to pay the claim of a very large dollar amount they denied the claim. I never received my policy either, does anybody have any advice concerning this matter! Please Advise: CA - San Diego
hi so ESURANCE SUCKS!!!! i have been a customer of them since march of 2008. never had any issues. very friendly customer service. they even allow a 3 day leeway to pay your monthly bill as well as allow you to change your bill due date and still get the three days!!... so i was told... as we all know times are tough for everyone right now and sometimes you have to be a day or 2 late. well in 2009 i had switched my my december due date from the 19th to the 21st. it was the latest they would let me. well i told them i wouldnt be able to pay it until the 22nd. they said thats fine! awesome news for me!! what i didnt know until 2 days ago (jan. 30th 2012) that they actually labeled that as a "late" payment. 2 days ago i received an e-mail saying they wont let me renew my policy when it ends this march of 2012. no information as to why i couldnt or anything. so after calling around and waiting on hold i spoke to a very snotty women who said it was because i have made at least 2 or more late payments since ive been a customer. in september 2011 i did have a late payment. i called them and apologized and told them i could pay it on the 23rd instead of the 19th. they gave me a 15 dollar late fee, understandable. but that was the only time that i was late that i was aware of, since i had changed the due date of the "first" late payment. so thats where they are getting the 2 late days from. apparently they have a new policy that any customer, new or old, will be dropped if they have ever had at least two late payments. she argued with me and told me there was no way that the first late charge was an on time payment, i said well i changed the date my records online show it paid on time, she said well thats not what her records say and it doesnt matter anyways because the desicion was made already, i asked who else i could speak to to try to work it out, she responded with you need to find new insurance, so i said to her listen i have been a good customer have never had any troubles with the company have made 15 of my payments early and the rest on time besides the one in sept. 2011 and your going to condemn me for that, and she said its just a new policy and thats how it is. im just going to end this blog because i could go on and on about how rude she got with me when i was keeping my cool, im very tempted to contact the better business bureau with this for the way i was treated as well as contact the media. 3 days ago if you had asked me who you should choose for insurance i would have said esurance, ask me now and i would tell you that you would be better off paying a pile of cow crap then giving them any money because they are just nasty when it comes down to it, as they lost a good customer.
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