- Say a windstorm picks up and blows over a tree in your backyard, causing it to crash into your house for $15,000 in damage. Your insurance company will not cover this. On the other hand, if a gang of vagabonds come by one night in a pick-up truck and steal your tree, that IS covered.
- If you own a business and park a boat in your empty parking lot behind your building, then a telephone pole falls over and completely demolishes that boat, it is NOT covered under your policy. Yet if a complete stranger parks his boat in your parking lot and the same thing happens, it IS covered. Under YOUR policy.
- Taking the prior example a step further: If YOU park your boat in some poor shmoe's parking lot and a telephone pole falls on it and the boat is 26 feet and 3 inches long, it is NOT covered. But if said boat is 25 feet and 11 inches long, it IS covered. If it is 25 feet, 11 inches long, and says "Big Frank's Fish, Chips, and Harbor Tours" in blue writing on the side, it is NOT covered.
- Assume you have a different Named Insured who has a BAP (Business Auto Policy) in which endorsement Symbol 3 (Owned Private Passenger Autos) is used to trigger liability, comprehensive, and collision coverage. If the insured acquires a panel truck, there is no automatic coverage because the panel truck does not qualify as a private passenger auto, unless specifically endorsed by using the QW30 Inland/Marine Additional Coverage form, (or, for clients located in California, Oklahoma, and some parts of Canada, the Accord 10W390 Umbrella Endorsement Document).
Ok, that last once wasn't about your auto or homeowner's policy. I just threw it in there to give you a feel for all the crap I have to study.
Can you believe this stuff? And these were just the examples that quickly came to mind, which are pretty tame compared to some of the other outlandish contradictions of common sense I've come across in the 3 years I've worked for the Man.
I mean, is learning this kind of information really what anyone should want to do with their life? How does it help anyone? Shouldn't insurance be designed to help people, not entangle them in a nightmare of forms, procedures, and bureaucratic drivel in the hopes that they will give up trying to get anything done and your company can profit? And this is just Property and Casualty insurance. Health insurance companies are far worse, even criminal as far as I'm concerned.
I guess what I like least about insurance is the fact that it's one of those industries where, whenever you are engaging in business with one of its representatives, you have that sinking feeling that you are about to be/have already been ripped off. So you're always on guard. It's the same feeling you get from car salesmen, mortgage companies, mechanics, and to a lesser degree, Christmas Tree salesmen.
Should it really be like that? Do you really want to be expecting a company you pay money to in order to receive a specific service to be looking for any and every loophole possible to rip you off in the name of profits?
So that's my dilemma. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an exciting chapter on blanket coverages in a typical commercial property policy to peruse.
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4 comments:
Great picture of Ned.
I agree with your sentiments. I wish we didn't need insurance, because I wouldn't use it then. One problem is that we are afraid of so many things, some of them legitimate and some of them myths. I will always be a customer of insurance companies, but hopefully I can stay away from having to be too involved.
All you can do is try to help people as much as you can, I guess.
Don't forget about that hot insurance-on-insurance action, such as death insurance whereby a life insurance company insures themselves against somebody dying too early on their policy. Good times all around.
You had me at "hot insurance-on-insurance action."
Sounds like you're working on CE credits... You echo my sentiments excatly. I know everyone has to have a job but at the end of the day I just feel like I didn't accomplish anything. And insurance companies are crooked. I'm insured for Gabe's truck that was just stolen through the same company I work for. We have a separate policy for his tools, some of which are 20 years old. They told us yesterday they were denying our claim because he did not have receipts for his tools. WHAT!!!??? I had to call them and say, "If you were going to require receipts, you had to do that at the time you collected premium. Since you collected premium without them, you must pay the claim without them or we're going to sue you." They said they'll work on it. It seems rediculous to me that I had to even threaten that. Why can't they just pay us what they owe us so the guy can get back to work? I'm so fed up with the whole mess! Gabe says he wants to cancel and switch to a different company but the sad truth is that all insurance companies work this way. It feels a little like selling a portion of my soue each hour I sit here and tell people, "We'll take car of you in the event of a loss." But they would fire me if I said, "Maybe we will, maybe we won't."
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