Fuck Allstate, Too

The damage to our car— a stick jammed in the radiator— should be covered by insurance. I called our insurer, Allstate, earlier this week as soon as I learned about the nature of the problem. I started a claim, got an adjuster assigned, then drove the car to my trusted specialist mechanic. The shop started diagnosis later that day and waited for an insurance inspector to come out and assess the damage themselves. The process was moving smoothly... until... nothing. Nothing happened on the insurance company side.

I called the adjuster assigned to my claim three times over the course of 2 days. She returned none of my calls. Understand, I wasn't asking anything big or difficult or out of line. My request each time was very simple:

• What's the status of my claim?
• What's the next step?
• What can I do to help expedite it?

But the adjuster never called back. And after my third call, I got a text that my claim was being transferred to another team. That adjuster would no longer be handling it.

"This is good news!" I thought at first. That adjuster was apparently doing nothing for me, and the new team was called the Express 500 team. That should mean faster service, right? Haha, no.

When I called the Express 500 team I quickly discovered that "Express 500" is the Orwellian name given to the global call center. I had basically been kicked back down to first level support. No adjuster was assigned now. And the call center agent could only promise that an inspector would be sent in a week.

"In a week?" I fumed. "My car is undriveable right now, and it's sitting in the shop. Can we get an inspector there sooner than one week?"

"The inspection will be completed in one week," the agent— or maybe a bot with really good text-to-speech— repeated.

"Yes, I heard you the first time. Is there anything we can do to go faster?"

"The inspection will be completed in one week."

Next I called the service manager at the shop to tell him this might take a while. "You're not going to start charging me rent, are you?" I asked with a chuckle. He assured me he wouldn't... and he added that his experience with insurance companies (as a repair shop manager) since the Pandemic is that they fired too many employees and are now all way understaffed.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking fuck these Allstate clowns. My auto insurance policy is up for renewal soon, and once again the price has increase significantly. The price has increased, yet the service has significantly worsened. The one thing you want car insurance for is to be there when there's trouble. Well, now there's trouble, and they won't return my calls or deviate from their "one week" script. Insurance is a racket. The only reason I have it (note: car insurance) is because it's required by state law. I went with a big-name insurer because I wanted better service. But since their service is nearly nil I'm ready to buy it cheaper elsewhere.