gunn
4th Gear Poster
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2023
- Messages
- 281
- Location
- SF , CA
- Vehicle Details
- 95 T-bird with 5.0and m5r2 swap for lemons
Insurance companies are only as useful as their willingness to pay out on claims. I know that MadMikey used to be an adjuster and probably everyone has some story or another about companies that are good/not about claims so I thought I might compile a list of three insurance companies I've had to deal with recently and my experiences with them
PET INSURANCE - Pets Best [recommended]
I live in a very HCOL area so after getting a dog last year, my friends all highly recommended that I get pet insurance while she was a puppy. They were totally right.
- I knew up front I should pay for an unlimited coverage (because vets are expensive here in SF), $500 deductible, 90% coverage, and have diagnostics included in the coverage. The last item cost an extra $8-ish a month but even if you bring a dog in with a broken leg, they'll charge you $150 to tell you your dogs leg is broken before charging you the money to actually fix it. This way, the $150 diagnostics charge gets applied to my annual deductible
- In the past year, my dog has had two histiocytomas (benign lump of immune cells found in lots of young dogs -- esp boxers or boxer mixes) removed, a cut foot treated, an eye infection, and a UTI. Silly puppy.
- This company has paid out exactly what they promised (90% of every charge, over the $500 deductible) without any fuss. The only charge they didn't cover was for a heartworm test which personally, i thought was unnecessary b/c she was already on heartworm meds. Petsbest called it a wellness item, and they probably weren't wrong on that call.
- The best part is that they've actually already sent me my renewal and the premium ($51/mo) hasn't gone up for year 2. It will go up as my dog ages but hey, its nice to see they are trying to boil the frog (me) slowly.
TRAVELER'S/MEDICAL INSURANCE - TRAWICK [NOT SO RECOMMENDED]
- I bought this insurance because I was going to go skiing in Japan with the fam and racing in Baja in the same year. Both are not exactly the safest hobbies.
- I know from friends that medical evac insurance is very, very expensive (a friend's mom got kicked in the head by a horse in Bolivia or something liek that. Cost $200k to get her back to the states). Medjet is the gold standard. I figured that i don't need the $500K of coverage since it won't be that much to get a heli from Baja/Baja Sur to San Diego. $50K medical evac and $10K medical coverage was enough and the cost was only $150/yr. As a side benefit, I got $2K or $2.5k of trip cancellation insurance.
- So my kid got sick the day before we were to fly out for Hokkaido so we cancelled our trip. My kid's pediatrician said not to fly so we cancelled everything. Our airline (EVA) let us switch tickets to April w/o much fuss ($250 charge for 3 tickets), but the hotels were more dickish. All in all, I had $800 in claims to make. No big deal I thought.
- I was so wrong. 5 submissions totalling 45 pages of PDFs, 5 months of back and forth, two doctors notes, and one appeal later (they denied me initialyl after 4.5 months), I finally got paid was I was owed. Clearly, they want to make this as much of a PITA as possible that you give up.
- I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH TRAWICK, Nationwide (the underwriter), or Coordinated benefit Plan (CBPconnect.com). This garbage intermediary exists to deny claims.
CELL PHONE PROTECTION - WELLS FARGO Signature Visa benefit administered by [RECOMMENDED]
- I never thought I'd recommend any Wells Fargo product but I kept this credit card solely because they offer cell phone protection. I even forgo the $10/mo per line verizon offers if I put my bill on their credit card. Turns out it works
creditcards.wellsfargo.com
- 3 years into owning my Pixel 6, and 1 month before the next-gen Pixel 9 gets released, the upper right 25% of my phone stops responding. I dunno why. I even did a factory reset to confirm it was a HW issue. It now came time to test this protection plan
- My previous experience is with the protection I got from VZW directly. In that scenario, a guy from Asurion came out to my office, replaced the cracked screen on my phone for a $30 deductible, and when he ended up disabling the volume buttons, they just swapped phones out for me 2 days later. super exec
- WF's plan is administered by Assurant, a company I've never heard of. The procedure is you need to upload your latest VZW bill and credit card (to confirm that you indeed paid your cell phone bill with your credit card) and get an estimate from a local shop. They won't replace cosmetic damage (only functional) but WILL cover lost/stolen phones (with a police report for the latter).
- This took me tracking down a local shop but I uploaded my documentation and got a claim approval the next day (they claim up to 15 biz days which sucks but the lady i spoke with says that if you provide the rquested info, they are typically pretty quick).
- The payout is less taxes (they don't pay sales tax) and a $25 deductible so my expected cost for the repair is right about $50. Now, the claim amount that got approved for me was different than the repair cost (and not less a fixed number like $25), I called back to ask for an explanation on why the approved amount was an odd number compared to my estimate. They acknowledged a mistake (used the wrong number in the repair estimate) and committed to fix it.
- Now, this process wasn't perfect but i'm 95% sure I'll be paid out what I'm due. If things go tits up though, my out of pocket will be more like $90 which is still fair for the repair.
- In the future, I could switch to Verizon's device protection plan @ $7.95/mo and use the VZW credit card autopay for the $10/line discount but it seems like the deductibles in case of theft migth be higher. Your scenario might be different but if you don't use VZW, the Wells Fargo perk seems pretty useful.
So, these are the three recent niche insurance claims I've made in the last year and my results. Do any of you have some good/bad stories to share about companies to consider/avoid?
PET INSURANCE - Pets Best [recommended]
I live in a very HCOL area so after getting a dog last year, my friends all highly recommended that I get pet insurance while she was a puppy. They were totally right.
- I knew up front I should pay for an unlimited coverage (because vets are expensive here in SF), $500 deductible, 90% coverage, and have diagnostics included in the coverage. The last item cost an extra $8-ish a month but even if you bring a dog in with a broken leg, they'll charge you $150 to tell you your dogs leg is broken before charging you the money to actually fix it. This way, the $150 diagnostics charge gets applied to my annual deductible
- In the past year, my dog has had two histiocytomas (benign lump of immune cells found in lots of young dogs -- esp boxers or boxer mixes) removed, a cut foot treated, an eye infection, and a UTI. Silly puppy.
- This company has paid out exactly what they promised (90% of every charge, over the $500 deductible) without any fuss. The only charge they didn't cover was for a heartworm test which personally, i thought was unnecessary b/c she was already on heartworm meds. Petsbest called it a wellness item, and they probably weren't wrong on that call.
- The best part is that they've actually already sent me my renewal and the premium ($51/mo) hasn't gone up for year 2. It will go up as my dog ages but hey, its nice to see they are trying to boil the frog (me) slowly.
TRAVELER'S/MEDICAL INSURANCE - TRAWICK [NOT SO RECOMMENDED]
- I bought this insurance because I was going to go skiing in Japan with the fam and racing in Baja in the same year. Both are not exactly the safest hobbies.
- I know from friends that medical evac insurance is very, very expensive (a friend's mom got kicked in the head by a horse in Bolivia or something liek that. Cost $200k to get her back to the states). Medjet is the gold standard. I figured that i don't need the $500K of coverage since it won't be that much to get a heli from Baja/Baja Sur to San Diego. $50K medical evac and $10K medical coverage was enough and the cost was only $150/yr. As a side benefit, I got $2K or $2.5k of trip cancellation insurance.
- So my kid got sick the day before we were to fly out for Hokkaido so we cancelled our trip. My kid's pediatrician said not to fly so we cancelled everything. Our airline (EVA) let us switch tickets to April w/o much fuss ($250 charge for 3 tickets), but the hotels were more dickish. All in all, I had $800 in claims to make. No big deal I thought.
- I was so wrong. 5 submissions totalling 45 pages of PDFs, 5 months of back and forth, two doctors notes, and one appeal later (they denied me initialyl after 4.5 months), I finally got paid was I was owed. Clearly, they want to make this as much of a PITA as possible that you give up.
- I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH TRAWICK, Nationwide (the underwriter), or Coordinated benefit Plan (CBPconnect.com). This garbage intermediary exists to deny claims.
CELL PHONE PROTECTION - WELLS FARGO Signature Visa benefit administered by [RECOMMENDED]
- I never thought I'd recommend any Wells Fargo product but I kept this credit card solely because they offer cell phone protection. I even forgo the $10/mo per line verizon offers if I put my bill on their credit card. Turns out it works
Cell phone protection with your credit card
Did you know that your credit card may include cell phone protection? Learn more about this benefit, how it works, and typical coverage options.
- My previous experience is with the protection I got from VZW directly. In that scenario, a guy from Asurion came out to my office, replaced the cracked screen on my phone for a $30 deductible, and when he ended up disabling the volume buttons, they just swapped phones out for me 2 days later. super exec
- WF's plan is administered by Assurant, a company I've never heard of. The procedure is you need to upload your latest VZW bill and credit card (to confirm that you indeed paid your cell phone bill with your credit card) and get an estimate from a local shop. They won't replace cosmetic damage (only functional) but WILL cover lost/stolen phones (with a police report for the latter).
- This took me tracking down a local shop but I uploaded my documentation and got a claim approval the next day (they claim up to 15 biz days which sucks but the lady i spoke with says that if you provide the rquested info, they are typically pretty quick).
- The payout is less taxes (they don't pay sales tax) and a $25 deductible so my expected cost for the repair is right about $50. Now, the claim amount that got approved for me was different than the repair cost (and not less a fixed number like $25), I called back to ask for an explanation on why the approved amount was an odd number compared to my estimate. They acknowledged a mistake (used the wrong number in the repair estimate) and committed to fix it.
- Now, this process wasn't perfect but i'm 95% sure I'll be paid out what I'm due. If things go tits up though, my out of pocket will be more like $90 which is still fair for the repair.
- In the future, I could switch to Verizon's device protection plan @ $7.95/mo and use the VZW credit card autopay for the $10/line discount but it seems like the deductibles in case of theft migth be higher. Your scenario might be different but if you don't use VZW, the Wells Fargo perk seems pretty useful.
So, these are the three recent niche insurance claims I've made in the last year and my results. Do any of you have some good/bad stories to share about companies to consider/avoid?
