Insurance and other fiascos

Remember the Insurance Case Manager who was going to call "guaranteed by close of business" the next day to tell me what would happen next? When he hadn't called by 4.30pm, I called him. I gave him my claim number, he misspelled my name a couple of times, managed to find my details then said "Okay Miss Shewkins, it looks like I can confirm the details of your claim and then we can get started."


Get started? Aren't you supposed to be telling me what you've already done? "I gave all the details yesterday when I lodged the claim. They told me you'd call to tell me what would happen next."


We argued pointlessly for a little while, then he asked me a subset of the exact same questions I'd answered the night before when I had just hit a deer and yet somehow was feeling much more patient and tolerant that I was at this stage in the conversation. Finally he started looking for an authorised assessor/repairer ... in California.


"I just told you five minutes ago I'm in Montana!"


He finally managed to find a repairer in the same time zone, actually in the same town, and made an appointment for the cream puff to be assessed asap.


I rang the tow truck company and asked them to drop the car off at the repairer/assessor. Scott, who owns the tow truck company, asked plaintively if they could drop it off first thing in the morning. I whined about it a bit, but agreed since it was now about 2 minutes to 5pm anyway. I then rang the repairer, gave them my sob story and begged for the car to be assessed as quickly as possible so I could do more to adjust my plans than cancel two nights accommodation in Wyoming. The woman at the repairer said she would do her very best and they would certainly let me know before close of business the following day.

I have decided that Insurance Case Managers are not Road Trip Angels, which is a shame really.