My letter to AARP Hartford Auto Insurance Company:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Recently it came time to renew my auto insurance.
Your insurance bill arrived in the mail on or around Jan. 25th, 2011. The due date was indicated as Feb. 4th, 2011. I had received no other bills or announcements of payments due.
The amount due with no options for extension of payments over time was an outrageous $1397.00 whereas the year of 2010 was bad enough at $1166.
I doubt you’ll take the time to review this policy which I am happy to say will be cancelled effective tomorrow, but if you do, you will see that my needs/requirements for auto insurance are minimal. Nothing had changed in my driving life to elicit such an enormous increase in premium...actually at the least it should have remained static since my little finance-free car’s book value right now is about $7500 on a good day.
I do not commute to work and I am the sole driver with a “superior” rating.
The fact that AARP (who will be hearing from me as well) permits and even supports your company in offering auto insurance is almost grounds for me to be leaving that organization.
I sought help from an agency in the Tampa Bay area who located a policy with improved coverage, an A++ rating from JD Power and a business track record dating from 1916. The price for this policy from Southern Owners Insurance Company paid in full (always my election, though, unlike your company, they do offer incremental payments) is a mere $885.67.
The difference is unconscionable and you can be sure that all my friends will be advised to go nowhere near your company for current or future policies.
Call me potentially paranoid and very possibly judgmental, but is it possible you are banking on some perceived “fact” that your customer base is aged and addled and might just pay up without a fight?
You definitely guessed wrong in this case. And if I were you, I’d revisit this business plan altogether.