I hadn't realized when I started this pairing that both posts involve an insurance company. It's the same insurance company since both my house and car are insured by the same one. The fight part is with separate companies, however. Last time it was the roofer. Now it's the insurance company.
It started three years ago. No, not the insurance issue, the issue causing the claim. I just never reported it and that's most of the problem.
I have full windshield replacement coverage. Arizona turns out to be full of rocks - who knew? - a decent percentage of which manage to creep out on roadways and wait for passing vehicles to pick them up and carefully aim them at the windshields of following ones. I have this reluctance to actually use my insurance coverage in the firm belief that even unavoidable claims tend to increase my premiums. You know, experience. Plus, back when this started, I'd already just had a claim in to the company after a piece of tire tread from a semi flew off and hit my bumper, mandating a replacement. That was in Minnesota, apparently home to more rubber pieces than rocks.
This time we were returning from Kartchner Caverns down by Benson, AZ. Highly recommended, by the way. But it was winter by the calendar, and snow surprised us as we emerged from the cave. By the time I got back on the freeway, heat was blasting along the inside of the windshield to help maintain visibility. The contrast in temperature with freezing air outside meant that when the rock took aim, it didn't just star the windshield, but left long lines trailing off in both directions horizontally. No chance of just a star patch. I'd need a new windshield.
I postponed doing anything. By the time we passed Tucson, the crack hadn't advanced from where it first appeared, all on the passenger side. Drove Steve nutty, but no problem at all from the driver's viewpoint. I was also petty sure that as soon as I fixed it I'd get another rock, and off we'd go again.
About a year later I did get that next rock. That peculiarly loud CRACK! is unmistakable. I looked all over the windshield and couldn't find a thing. I was in the habit of tracking the original crack by running my finger across the end of the crack and seeing if the crack passed the line my finger left. It never moved. Nothing else started. Until....
Something like a year ago, but in the heat of summer, I took the car into the dealer for some maintenance. They "rewarded" my patronage with a free carwash. It must have sat out in the sun for a while between finishing the work and getting the wash, because the cold water on the hot windshield helped me locate where that second rock hit. All I had to do was follow the two new long curly cracks back to their one starting point, way down on the bottom, behind black shadow and a wiper blade. Now it was time to get that windshield fixed.
Of course, inertia, covid, lack of need, avoidance of everything and everybody, all yielded a predictable result: it's not yet fixed. Rich and Steve now have both been nagging me about replacing it, including a recitation of how serious various states take that kind of thing, even though I promise you those cracks do not interfere with my vision.
The final impetus was the coupon. It's on the back of my Fry's grocery receipt... and Steve's receipts and Rich's receipts. It may surprise you but none of those places are things I actually look at. But it's a coupon for $75 in a cash card for any windshield replacement fully paid for by the insurance company. OK, I'm finally sold.
However, it's gotten hard to schedule where my car is going to be a few days into the future. I mean, there were shots, doctor visits, club obligations, a whole lot of which are "maybes", depending upon things we couldn't predict. With most of those resolved, we're down to simple procrastination, finally ended this morning when I'm pretty sure the calendar entries are what's what for a week. By now I had a completely different question for the insurance company as well, so it really was time to make that call.
So far, so good. I'd prepared by going out to the car to get the insurance card with the policy number on it, as well as all those extra letters at the end of my model that apparently mean something about my car being a little different from those other Hyunday Accent hatchbacks as far as the windshield (or every other bleeding part like tires, battery, fuel filter, wiper blades... with nobody able to tell me why.) Anyway, armed with all the needed info, or so I thought, I hit the phone for their auto insurance division.
"This number is out of service. Google will be recording this call..." Instant hang up on my part. WTF? OK, I called the homeowners branch and got transferred to the right person with little hassle by what is usually an idiotic and incomprehensible voicemail program in any other company. Smooth as our sweet dog's ears this time, sent to the correct person in short order.
So why is this a "fight"?
I got transferred to the person who would start my claim file for me. She asked the exact date of the claim. OK, so after three years, who has that? I probably blogged about it, but right then this wasn't handy and the research would take a bit. Steve and I guessed the month, threw in a day, with the explanation of how the crack had happened, etc., adding at the end we weren't trying to do any insurance fraud, we/I just hadn't reported it until now because reasons.
What was our policy number? I had that, gave it. She repeated it back to me, incorrectly. How about our address? I started wondering if I had suddenly started speaking Mandarin without somehow realizing it, because I would give a name or a number and it would be repeated back clearly, but wrong. How does an 8 sound like a 6, or Arizona sound like Missouri?
Once that got straightened out, she started looking at how far back I'd carried their insurance. Way back before this first rock, I knew. Had they maybe changed my policy number? If so, nobody told me. She warned me I might have to pay for the whole windshield. I decided to look for proof, heading to the back of the house where tax documents are stored. Those files have shrunk every year since I retired, but I still keep any 1099s, all my bank statements, credit card receipts, etc. I hoped the insurance information with policy number had gotten filed, but no. However, insurance payments are on auto-deduct from the bank, always on the 15th, so all I needed was the year in question's tax file and any month's statement. There they both were, house and car payments. Before the rock. Would that help?
Not really. But let's go ahead with other information. Did I have a (...jargon...) windshield? I decided I needed to head outside and take an actual look at it. I've only looked through it for 125,000 miles so what did I know? I look down or straight when I drive. Not much pavement as a rule up in the sky. Did she mean there across the top where there was a 4" band of color shading? You know, usually behind the lowered visors and rear view mirror, that part of the windshield? Because if that was what she meant, yup, I did. (I guess this means I get that shading again.)
What kind of hatchback do I have? Two door? Four door? Does it have a trunk (aka couldn't I tell a hatchback from a sedan? Grrrrr.) I thought for half a second and informed her it is a 5 door! Another question sent me to another part of the house for information, and on and on, back and forth enough so that we were finally both laughing at how I was at least getting my exercise this morning.
Since the only issue in her mind was whether their company was actually responsible for this claim, I was instructed to write down a couple numbers, prompting yet another walkabout to locate pen and paper along with place to sit where I could write while on the phone. Did I want to use their own company for replacement? She could cite my benefits in doing so. I declined. Was I sure, because.... No. Well, then what's the phone number of who I'd chosen? Back to the coupon, different part of the house than the last question had taken me. She called it. Wait a minute. Wrong number, not their main office: did they have another number on the coupon? Sure did. She called and this time verified information with them. (Now that first number was at least a contractor for the company. Couldn't she have asked them for that office number? Too easy? Yeah, I know.)
Now I was told to wait for two different emails to come through before I was the one to actually call the window company. The first would verify that they were working with my insurance company but couldn't verify my deductible, aka $0. but it would have one of the numbers she'd had me write down, proof that they were the real deal. The second would have both a second number I'd written down but also show my deductible, aka proof that the insurance company had actually verified I was insured with them for the incident in question. I would be able to set up an appointment to get my new windshield only after that second one came through, or risk paying the whole bill myself. She also warned me that most of these companies were booking two or three weeks out from getting their first call.
Once done, my paranoia was prodded enough to go back into old tax returns to prove for my own satisfaction as well as be armed in case the insurance company tried to deny coverage that I'd actually been paying them well before that first rock attack. The first packet I grabbed was 2016, and right there on top of the stack it was. The real shock was noting that my premiums back then were a third of what I'm paying now!
I turned the computer back on to check my email. Both emails were there. I called and set up an appointment for Thursday. Yes, this week. They had several openings to pick from that day.
If I collect another rock on Friday I'm calling the insurance company right that day. Or maybe Monday. Or....
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