Wil's Rant

It’s hard to actually pin down who holds the most fault in this one. About 2 months ago Pilot insurance decided to limit the amount of Auto policies they were carrying. To this end they notified many of their top Brokers that they would no longer be carrying auto policies with them, including ours. Our diligent agent, wanting to make a smooth transition in what was obviously a nightmare for them, went ahead and signed us up with ING Auto. Here’s were it gets fun. Our previous payment had been $ 83.00 per month with Pilot. Last month no payment came out of the account. My wife called our agent to see what was up and was informed about the transfer then and told that two payments would come out this month. This month ING took $ 454.00 from our account. When we called to find out what the hell was going on, our agent told us it was a simple clerical error and we had been listed as code 0 rating instead of Code 6 raising out rates to $227.00 per month OOOpppps. We informed our agent about our little problem of that representing a good portion of our mortgage payment and we would need the money back, as well as any interest or service charges that we incur as a result of their mistake. No can do was the reply, they would only cover any of their own charges and by the way, if we want to cancel the policy we would have to pay a cancellation fee. You got it… Pay to cancel a service that we never wanted, never asked for, never agreed to, never signed for, never authorized to take money from our accounts, and more than doubled our rates without our knowledge, although they have corrected the rate thing now. At last report, out of the kindness of ING’s hearts they have agreed to wave the cancellation fee. As to any monies we are out as a result of their little error- take it up with the Ombudsman’s office. Now here’s the real kicker- Pilot who we will return too with another agent is the company that I would least like to do business with. The reason stems from their Supreme Court loss a couple of years back of a case dealing with their denying an old couple their fire claim due to suspicion of Arson. The problem, no-one else felt that there had been an arson. Not the Fire Marshal, not the Police, not in fact their own investigator. So exactly what reason did they have for making an elderly couples lives a living hell for the ten years that it took them to finally win in court? Perhaps they felt that if it took long enough, they wouldn’t have to pay because either stress or old age would have killed them before they ever won in court. However, the other guys are making it awfully hard to choose a better company!