My insurance agent of over 20 years has been informed that he has not cancelled enough of his customers policies and will be dismissed from Farmer's. Farmer's wants more customers in the higher rate insurance group called Mid Century. I submitted two claims last year and was informed that my policy would be cancelled if I did not want the Mid Century insurance. What is so wrong with this is that both claims were not due to my being at fault. I am adding Farmer's to my list of Greedy Scumbags.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), February 18, 2000

Answers

WOW!! incredible. not even your fault but they are looking for excuses.

I have thus far had wonderful experience with Erie Insurance of PA. Truly. I have been hit at least four or five times in the past five years and they have been excellent about fixing everything and quality service. Plus there was once when my car never ran right after an accident and six months later the mechanic realized my computer may have been damaged. They replaced it--no problem to the tune of $1000.

I don't know how the rates compare, however, with other companies.

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), February 18, 2000.

A typical insurance company tactic is to develop a 'product' get people to buy it and then over the lifetime of the product (before serious payouts begin to hit the bottom line) to slowly eject people from the product by whatever means, sometimes by changing the premiums to the point that the remaining people can't afford to continue to be covered.

Why has no one developed a 'coop' insurance where the sole purpose of the program is to simply distribute risk rather than make huge profits. I know why for profit companies don;t do this, but wonder why ordinary people don't do something like this.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), February 18, 2000.

I shall repeat a previous gripe of mine;

After taxes, 40% (FORTY PERCENT) of my husband's monthly income goes to auto insurance (required by law), property insurance (required by law) and health insurance (luxury). Blood sucking leeches. The deductibles are too high and the fine print breeds like rabbits.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), February 18, 2000.

I have had a good experience with Allstate. We've had them for more than 10 years. In fact, they just dropped our rates due to a clean driving record. We've had several claims in the past and they never raised our rates. Farmer's tried to screw me once and my Allstate agent took me back within the waiver period, so I wasn't out anything. Farmer's told me they could beat my rate and then when I got in their office they said I never told them about certain claims, a LIE. They had said they could beat my rate at Allstate and then upped in big time. Needless to say, I would never deal with Farmer's.

-- Just Curious (jnmpow@flash.net), February 18, 2000.

State Farm will do it to you too. More so if you deal with a large city agent. OTOH, I've had better experiences with their small town agents and adjusters where you're not just a number. I've found the rural folks tend to write their reports in the customer's favor than the companies cus if the local word spreads of unfair treatment, they lose a lot more than just one client. It might even show up in the local newspaper.

Having learned that, I use a rural agent even tho I live in a large city. And I go visit her twice a year, hand deliver my payment and chat awhile. It's a nice drive. On those occasions when I can't make the trip, I call and chat for a few minutes. People to people is better than number to number. Just like here on TB2.

-- mush (discovery@shields.up), February 18, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

One of my Y2K preps called for me to be extra careful to not let any of my insurance policies lapse into the grace period. Normally, when this happens the insurance company sends a warning letter in time for the customer to continue the policy, or reinstate it with lapse of coverage. I figured that it would be in the company interest to fail to send out the notices in late 1999 or to send them out quite late. Then, if nothing happened, they could send out reinstatement notices.

If there were any widespread wildfires, flooding, industrial accidents or civil unrest, these companies would be in a world of trouble. I didn't hear of any such activity on the part of the insurance companies. Perhaps, though, what you're experiencing is related, if they think there is still some potential for disruption.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), February 18, 2000.