Insurance companies are gross

Let’s talk insurance. Insurance companies are gross. I’m not sure what your experience with them is like, but I’ll tell you my latest one has been an exercise in frustration and futility.

I’ll start by saying that my insurance provider is Intact. I use a local broker and they are amazing. They are friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. It’s when you must make a claim with somebody somewhere in Alberta that everything falls apart. 

This is my story. Aiden is at the University of Edmonton. He had his father’s car up there and it was vandalized on the university campus. He was going to swim at the pool and made the mistake of leaving his swim bag in his car while he attended classes. He came out of class with the entire rear window of the car smashed and his swim bag gone. 

All together we are looking at a $1,300.00 worth of stolen material as well as a replacement rear windshield in the amount of $550.00 for a grand total of $1,850.00.

So, I called Intact. It took a long time on hold waiting to talk to an adjuster. When we finally got to Intact’s property adjuster, I went through what happened. This took an inordinate amount of time. I almost had to tell them how long I was in labour with Aiden for, just to get the ball rolling. 

After a 20-minute call about my life I found out that I now also needed to talk to Intact’s window adjuster. Well guess what, I’m back talking to another person. This time I’m sure I had to explain how long my caesarean took and how many kids I birthed and what I ate for dinner the night before.

Finally, an hour later, I thought I’m good to go until I tell Intact’s window adjuster about the stolen items, and I’m directed back to Intact’s property adjuster to talk to them again!

Now I’m into this for just about two hours. 

I call Aiden to get the police report. He informs me that he can’t get the police to even return his message, it’s an online submission. So here we are three days later, cardboard where a window used to be, two hours of my life lost to insurance adjusters, an anti-rain dance and I believe we ready to go. 

Then we get hit with this lovely piece of information: Even though I have one policy for my house and vehicles, and even though I pay the insurance company almost $9,000.00 a year, I must pay $500.00 deductible for the rear window and an additional $1,000.00 deductible for the stolen property. 

Why can’t they just tell you this ahead of time? My feeling is that they make the experience so frustrating that you just give up.

We gave up and just paid for the rear windshield. Aiden will have to accept the loss of his swim bag; he can swim in his undies I suppose.

He did nothing wrong and yet we left the experience as if he had. Like it was his fault some idiot stole his swim bag thinking they were most likely getting a computer.

This had me thinking what it must be like for people struggling to get on AISH or social services or seniors trying to get some subsidies from the government.

The paperwork is most likely so onerous they just give up like we did. They probably miss out on needed services because governments and companies just wear you down until you quit. 

So, thank you INTACT for just kind of sucking. You are happy to take my $9,000.00 a year, but not too good at being there when you are needed. 

Bureaucracies suck, insurance companies suck, and any group that makes it impossible to help those in need, well you suck too!

I suppose since Edmonton is now murder capital of Canada, I should just count my blessings it was just a broken window and nothing else!