Every Day Brings New Frustrations

Everyday since our little fender bender on March 31, I have been on the phone with Allstate Insurance who covers the woman who smacked my trunk lid. Sometimes twice a day and a couple a times more than twice. But not today.

If they were hoping that I might develop amnesia, forgetting about my claim, from beating my head against the obstacles they have thrown at me, they were almost right.

At first they refused to do anything without getting the accident report from their agent. South Carolina law says that you have 15 days to turn in the report to your insurance company, so you can guess when the person at fault will be turning it in. After 4 days I finally got them to agree to accept my copy if it was faxed from my agent to theirs and then their agent would fax it to them. When they got it last Wednesday they said that because they hadn’t actually talked to the driver yet, a manager had to OK it to assign liability and that might take up to 3 days!

In this time I have called the 1-800 number for Allstate Claims about 8 times and had spoken to 8 different people with varying hoops to jump through or bits of advice, including one kindly southern old lady who suggested that I make the claim against my insurance and let the 2 companies fight it out. Right!?! I had also spoken to the local agent who insured the vehicle several times and they have been as nice as they can be, but keep running into the same walls as me. They have tried to contact the insured on several occasion and keep getting a busy signal or no answer. The Allstate Claims office had gotten the same non-responsiveness. They had even sent a letter to them, but nothing yet.

Thursday, 6 days after the event, the driver turns in the accident report. But claiming time constraints cannot talk to the claims office. Finally on Friday the local agent gets the driver on the phone and connects them to the claims office. When I contact the claims office it turns out that talking to the driver was not entirely enough. She is not specifically mentioned on the insurance, so now the insured (mom or dad) has to be contacted to be sure she had permission to drive the car. Jeez, if not, that is a whole ‘nother department and the 10th different person I have spoken to at 1-800 claims office says that might take weeks.

Over the weekend we make no progress contacting the insured and even take a step back when the “manager” determines that he needs a real accident report, not just the basic exchange of information form that got filled out at the time of the incident. I kindly explain to the customer service rep, which I know will do no good, that is all they are going to get because both vehicles were drivable and no one was injured.

Yesterday, Monday, day 10, we have a breakthrough, my pestering the local agent gets them to try the insured again, after all, how much manpower is Allstate going to commit to the job of contacting them anyway? The local folks get the insured hooked up with the 1-800 claims people. When she hangs up with them she calls me and says it looks good I should be hearing from the claims people later that day or tomorrow (which is today.)

So I don’t try and call them today for fear of tying up my phone and Allstate not being able to get through to me. So far, silence from the Good Hands people. I guess I’ll call tomorrow and see what the Excuse Du Jour is.