When NOT to Listen to Your Car Insurance Agent

We were satisfied with our insurance agency and the car insurance company they had us with. Service was friendly at the insurance agency and outcomes positive when we needed coverage.

Then we received the news the insurance agency had been sold. When our car insurance came due, our agent and the new owner notified us our cars couldn't be insured under our old insurance policy. Our choice, we were told was another policy from a different insurance company. It will cost less, the agent told us, with just as good coverage.

We weren't thrilled with changing from the insurance company we'd relied on for so long. We didn't understand, but reluctantly, we allowed the agent to talk us into changing insurance companies. That was a mistake.

Problems surfaced almost immediately with cost, with how and when payments needed to be made, with just basic information and receipt of payment. This led to lots of phone calls to the agent. We decided when the car insurance came due in six months we'd look for another agent and another insurance agency, one we trusted since we were fast losing faith in the one we had.

I still didn't understand why our old car insurance wouldn't handle us under our circumstance. Finally, I called another insurance agency where because of a personal tie, I had some trust in what they might say. They also carried the insurance for the company we'd let lapse. It didn't take long for me to realize the problem had never been the insurance, but the agency, more in point, the agent.

We bought a n insurance policy with our old insurance company under the new agency and were happy to be back. As soon as the new insurance policy was in force, I called our former agent and told him to cancel the insurance policy he'd had us buy. I thought that was that. It wasn't.

We got several mailings from that insurance company, but paid little attention since we'd canceled it. Then we received a bill. What! Two months after we'd canceled the policy, I called the agent at that old insurance agency only to discover the policy had never been canceled. I was not a happy camper.

In looking back, I see now the things we did right and things we could have done differently. We were right in checking out the situation with another insurance agency. We were wrong in waiting. Had we done so before our policy lapsed, some things such as a year-long policy would not have been lost.

When what we were told made us uneasy, we should not have assumed the agent knew what was best for us and so allowed the change. Though I talked to the agent and asked for everything in writing, I should have been more ready to jump ship when the simplest requests seemed to meet with hesitation.

Finally, when I called to cancel the insurance policy, I should have requested written confirmation. It would have lessened stress down the line.

We learn from our mistakes. Next time we talk insurance with an agent, we'll be more interactive, more ready to check things out with other agencies before a policy lapses, and, most important, make sure every interaction has written confirmation.