End of a 35 year relationship, THIS gets immediate response

So the other day I got an email from Allstate about the first installment payment for my next 6 month policy period.  When I saw the amount I realized it was over 10% more than the last policy period which instantly sparked an intense irritation which I got around to investigating yesterday.  Several car insurance companies, including Allstate were very anxious to publicize how they were giving their customers a “rebate” since there has been significantly less driving, hence less claims since Covid 19 lock downs were enabled.  I actually got my $30 rebate check a few days prior to this renewal which I thought was ironic. The more I thought about this the angrier it got me.  Allstate just proclaimed how their costs were down so they were passing that along to the customer yet they follow up IMMEDIATELY with a 10% rate increase??  So they gave me $30 but in my case want to charge me almost an extra $300 for the year??  You son of a bitches.

So I called up my agent and started complaining.  I minced no words in expressing how ridiculous and disingenuous the situation was, giving a rebate and then charging nearly 10 times more of that amount on the back end.  I continued ranting about how annoying it is that even though I have a clean driving record and am an “older” person my rates seem to steadily increase with Allstate.  I said the way it used to be as you got older your car insurance went down, not up.

The guy on the phone understood my frustration and agreed with me.  He said everyone in their office cringed when they heard about the rate increase because they knew how ridiculous it looked after rebating money back just prior.  When I asked for some sort of relief they had nothing for me other than the option to pay for the entire year in advance, as far as Allstate was concerned the price was the price.  I told the guy how it seems like Allstate doesn’t give a shit about customer loyalty.  I told him I had been with the company for more than 35 years.  He sadly agreed with me, they don’t care.

So I asked him what my options were with other companies since they represented more than one insurance carrier.  He said he would run my information through some other companies to see what sort of rates I could get.  A short while later he called me back with some good news.  He said I could get comparable coverage through Travelers for $83 a month less than what Allstate has been charging me, a HUGE difference.  Travelers had similar savings for the million dollar liability policy that I had to get for the solar system.

Well that was all it took. In the span of 30 minutes I had severed my 35 year relationship with Allstate and signed on with Travelers.  I made sure to send a tweet @allstate expressing how shitty I thought it was for them to pull this stunt.  It’s too bad that companies nowadays don’t really care or emphasize taking care of customers that have remained loyal to them.  It’s the cold reality of the world we live in.

So Miguel’s crew spread the sod I bought around yesterday.  I need a little more but I plan to address that via a Home Depot run instead of buying more pallets.  We are actually going to be able to move some of the stuff that was laid down in a non-low spot to make up for deficit elsewhere.  I found it funny in an annoying way that Miguel was very quick to text me an updated amount of what I still owed him when it was so painfully slow to get responses to my questions this entire time.  I told him I would be happy to write him a check for the remaining amount once he rolls the sod as he promised.  If he never gets around to doing that then I guess I won’t get around to writing that check.

For the last two days there have been protests here regarding the Floyd murder.  When I walked out to my car last night in the pouring rain I was amazed at the amount of police in the parking garage, staged to deal with whatever happened.  There were a couple dozen police vehicles around and at least 50 deputies grouped together.  The demonstrations here were mostly peaceful outside of some yelling and pushing.  The outrage is understandable, especially when our president tear gasses a crowd so they disperse to allow him to stand in front of a church holding a bible for a photo op.  It was like he ripped a page directly from the playbook of other famous dictators.  His lack of empathy, understanding, and intelligence continues to be awe inspiring, in an awful way, day in and day out.

I made a video last night demonstrating how to install the new 3D rear bumper model I am selling on the store, if you are about these things.  Store sales have been really brisk, exceeding capacity currently.