Insurance wierdness

[ScottA]

In October of last year our construction insurance expired. My agent suggested since the cabin was almost done that I buy regular homeowners insurance instead of renewing the construction policy. I said ok. I paid her around $600 for the policy that same day. A couple of months went by and I recived nothing. I called and asked her what happened to my policy. She said I was covered and she'd look into it.

About a month ago she called and asked if I had recived a questionaire from them and a policy. I said no. She informed me they had cancelled the policy for some unexplained reason and she needed to get another company to write one. I got the new one in the mail, answered the questions and sent it back. Then I got a bill for $700 last week. I called and asked about the first $600 I had paid and she said I had refund comming and to go ahead and pay the new bill so I did.

Today I got a call from a collection agency for the first insurance. There was an overdue balance of $167 for 3 months of coverage from October to December 2009. They had cancelled the Insurance for non-payment. So now my agent is looking into it again. Seems my first $600 payment went into never-never land.

Something smells fishy here.

[MountainDon]

Did the first check ($600) clear your bank?

It's not the first time something like that has happened. Easy to apply the money to the wrong account if someone is not paying attention. We've had that happen. One of the PO's about that occurs if the insurance company reported you to the credit bureaus as a non pay or something. Run a credit report.

[ScottA]

Well I checked into it and you where right Don. The check was never cashed. So aparently they lost it. Whats wierd is I never even got a bill for it. Yet they turned it over for collections.

[MountainDon]

That goes to show they can do more than one thing wrong.      consistency of the wrong kind.

[peternap]

Don't you love good customer relations.

Don't pay the collection agency.
Send them a certified letter telling them to cease communications. Then tell the insurance agency that you will pay them when they send you a letter telling you the account has been cancled and returned from the agency.

Don't feed the bloodsuckers

[pagan]

Scott,

You need to make sure they have that non payment taken off your credit report.

[ScottA]

Easier said than done but I'm working on it. Why do they automaticly assume you are lying to them? Oh NM. 

[MountainDon]

Scott did you mail the first check to the agent or to the company? We had the agent mess up and lose a check.

[ScottA]

The check was handed to the agent in person.

[MountainDon]

So the agent should be doing something to help with getting the "non-payment" straightened out. They might have forgotten to forward it. In any event it was out of your hands from right after you wrote the check.


... One reason I online payments. I get the receipt and if I lose it its my fault.

[ScottA]

She said she it to them but she agreed I had paid it. I'm sure she'll make a call for me if need be. Again, whats wierd is I never got a single piece of mail from that insuance company. No bill. No policy. No nothing.

[MountainDon]

Yeah, that part is strange. We get ample mail from ours.

[ScottA]

Update on the weirdness. The first Insurance company found the original check in their files. It seems it was never processed fully though the binder had been issued. My agent had done that part. Somehow the file ended up being stored away without being processed. The balance due was reduced to $127 and the insurance company is suposed to be issuing me a refund for the rest. Suposedly the collection agency has been called off as well. I'll still need to run a credit check in a few days to see if it's gone. How much you want to bet it's not? Talk about screwed up.

[MountainDon]

It could take 30-90 days for the correction to show up, as far as my past experience with banks and reporting stuff like that goes.  G/L

[Redoverfarm]

It is bad enough when we screw up but it is even worse when someone else does concerning our affairs.  The biggest difference is that we can work toward fixing it whereas we have no control over the remedy by others.