How Insurance Companies Work?

From 2010, the one time I bought a new car. I have previously owned vehicles most of my life, and this car convinced me that is the correct decision. Getting insurance should have been simple?

As part of the gyrations I must go through to purchase a new vehicle, I must get my new car insured (that is the law, no getting away from that).

The easiest thing for me was to remove my old vehicle from the policy. Then add my new car, and pay the difference in premium (if there is any).

This same task I attempted to do. Since I am now a member of the Public Service, I receive a discount from my Insurance company. However, I was mistaken.

Currently, I am part of a discount plan given that I was a Nortel employee with this insurance company. I have my cars insured using this discount. I assumed if I called the “broker” for the Public Service side of the bargain, they would transfer me. Yes, dear reader, you guessed it, nothing is as simple as I think it will be, and thus the story takes a left-hand turn.

Insurance Sequence of Events

I called up the brokers and said, I am an existing client of the insurance company, and I’d like to add a vehicle to my coverage, the young lady on the phone was more than happy to help me out, and she asked for my policy ID to “bring up my file.” I exercised my abilities in the phonetic alphabet rattling of various Alfa, Bravo, Tango and other letters and the young lady typed it all in. She repeated back to me what I had just told her, and I agreed she had the correct policy number.

Her response surprised me when she said, “I am sorry, sir, your policy is not coming up. Do you have your policy with this broker?” I said, “Pardon?”. Who I have my insurance with is not as important as from whom I purchased my insurance. I was told that I would need to call the “broker” I had dealt with previously to add my new vehicle.

The interesting twist is that the “broker” I deal with is part of my insurance company. Thus I must call my insurance company, have them transfer me to my “broker,” and then add my new vehicle.

I finally got a new quote for my new vehicle, so that task is now complete.

Obtuse Insurance Games

My insurance policies renew in a few months. Now I will do something so obtuse that I must write it down to believe this, but here goes:

I will phone an insurance broker to get a quote for my car insurance with the same insurance company that I currently have to see if I can get a cheaper rate for my car insurance, even though the policy will be with the exact same insurance company.

I guess it makes sense given the discounts available and the free market at work. It always seems so obtuse that I can get a lower price for the same product by simply calling someone else. Yes, I am naive, I assume the lowest price should be the regular price, but that is another story.

Interesting Brand Name Funny

When Buick introduced its new Luxury Sports Sedan (I have no idea what this class of car is for, but let’s stay on track here), they did not check with their offices in Montreal about the new Brand Name they were going with. This vehicle’s name is the LaCrosse, but in French Canadian slang, LaCrosse means … Ummm … let me put this in a delicate way … male sexual self-gratification, to put it as delicately as I can. I was unaware of this, but I did check with a French Canadian co-worker, and sure enough, that is the case.

This is almost as good as the Chevy Nova, which in Spanish translates to “No Go”!

OK, nothing to do with money, but still quite funny