I’ve gotten a lot of e-mail asking where we are with the insurance company, following our burglary to our motorhome. As regular blog readers know, at first we were having a real hassle with our insurance company, National Interstate, and when we called our agent, PoliSeek, they told me they didn’t get involved in problems like that and referred me back to the same claims adjuster at National Interstate who was giving us all the problems.

After I wrote about the problem in the blog and it became a topic of discussion on several RV internet forums, most notably the Escapees, people started calling their agents and National Interstate asking if they could expect the same lack of service if they had a claim.

Cheryl Howarth from Miller Insurance in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and another agent from South Dakota, both of whom have a lot of RV owners as customers, took it upon themselves to contact National Interstate on our behalf. The response from the company was immediate, and within an hour or so the same claims adjuster who had been giving us grief was on the telephone bending over backwards to accommodate our every need.

We now have been reimbursed for all of the items that were stolen or vandalized, except for one small check that we should receive this week, and as I understand it, the shop in Indiana that did our repairs has also been paid, except for two sets of day/night shades that we are still waiting on the factory to send to us.

Fourteen days after our burglary, a representative from PoliSeek called in response to the internet uproar that had resulted, and the next day her supervisor called. They wanted to know what they could do to help, and I told them that they were too late, other agents had handled the problem for us. The supervisor told me that it really wasn’t their job to deal with the insurance company for us. In other words, they’ll take our money, but they don’t want to get involved if we have a problem. So why have an agent in the first place?

As soon as life gets back to normal after the holidays, we will be talking to Cheryl at Miller Insurance about placing all of our business with her. From all of the good feedback I have gotten from customers of Progressive, I think that’s who we’ll end up with, if Cheryl represents them. She has earned our business, and I’d much rather she makes a commission on our insurance policies. PoliSeek has seen the last penny they’ll ever get from me. If you are looking for RV insurance, or are thinking about moving your business, I’d readily recommend Cheryl. I’d recommend the agent in South Dakota as well, but I never did get her full name or the name of the agency she works for.

While Miss Terry was busy stuffing envelopes yesterday, Bad Nick wrote a new Bad Nick Blog post titled The GPS Made Me Do It. Check it out and leave a comment. 

Thought For The Day – A friend is someone who reaches for your hand, but touches your heart.

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It’s just as well that I’m stuck inside working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal, because it’s raining again. We had one mostly clear day Wednesday to give us a break, but yesterday it started all over again, with more rain forecast today.

I know a couple of people who want to leave Summerdale, but the ground is so saturated that they aren’t sure they can even get their RVs out of their campsites. As soon as we get the new issue printed and mailed, we’ll be right behind them. I’m ready to head west.

I spent most of yesterday at my computer, except for an hour or so in the afternoon, when I began to get droopy and stretched out on the couch for a nap. We had a late breakfast or an early lunch, depending on what you want to call it, and when evening rolled around, we weren’t really hungry, so Miss Terry made up a batch of her homemade peanut butter cookies, which were delicious with a cold glass of milk. She says she really misses the Avanti gas range and oven she had in our bus conversion, but I think she’s getting the hang of using the convection oven in our Winnebago.

Judging from the responses to my last couple of blog posts, and the many, many e-mails I have received about our problems with our insurance claim, this has really stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Though PoliSeek, whom we purchased our insurance from, has never called me back, yesterday two other agents who sell for National Interstate contacted the bigwigs at that company, after their customers read my blog comments and e-mailed them. One said that she had already lost customers over the issue, who were taking their business elsewhere. The company told one of them that they were already aware of the blog posts on the subject and were going to get the issue resolved immediately.

Suddenly there seems to have been a complete change of attitude on the part of the claims adjuster I have been working with. He called to tell me that they didn’t have to wait for the last set of notarized papers I sent him listing the items stolen, all I needed to do was go out and buy replacements and they would reimburse me. I explained that I don’t have huge piles of money laying around to go on a shopping spree, and that we had acquired those things over time. He said no problem, just find them on the internet and send him a link to web pages showing their prices and they will send me out a check for whatever the total comes to. Suddenly that 180 day time frame that existed to settle the claim in seems to have disappeared.

I’m still waiting for word on the final repairs that have to be made at Camping World, but he assured me that it will all be resolved very quickly. I’m still skeptical, based upon National Interstate’s past performance, but I hope they will now follow through.

And while I’m appreciative of the other agents, whom I have no business dealings with, for going to bat for us, I’m thoroughly pissed that my own agent, PoliSeek still has ignored us. One of the other agents who contacted the company made one phone call, and had three managers from National Interstate contact her within 24 hours to find out the details to get the issue resolved. Why couldn’t PoliSeek do that for me? They sure have made a lot of commission money from my premiums over the years, since they cover our motorhome, two other vehicles, and I used them for coverage on the bus and my motorcycle before I sold them. I also used them to secure insurance for our Gypsy Gathering rallies. They have lost our business, and I will make it a point to tell any other RVers I talk to (and I talk to a lot of RVers over the course of a year), just how bad they treated us.

So yes, things look better, based upon my last conversations with the claims adjuster. But this whole thing leaves me wondering how many people out there have the same problems, but do not have access to the wide audience I do, to vent their frustrations in public, and instead just have to bend over and take it. It shouldn’t have to be that way for anybody.

Thought For The Day – He who knows nothing, doubts nothing.

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If you see Noah, tell him I’d like to swap a really nice Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome for his ark!

It has been raining ever since we got back to Summerdale, and I’m starting to collect two of every critter I see, just in case. Here are a couple of photos of the puddles taken from in front of our motorhome yesterday morning. Everywhere we step, the ground is just saturated.

A lot of blog readers have e-mailed asking me how our insurance company is treating us since we were burglarized and vandalized the evening of December 4^th. I have held off on saying much, hoping to keep a spirit of cooperation going. But since that hasn’t done us any good, here is how the situation looks from my point of view. Please excuse the rant, but we feel like we are being victimized for a second time.

We have used PoliSeek (formerly AON) as our insurance agent for most of the ten years we have been on the road. First they placed us with Royal Sun Alliance, and when that company stopped covering RVs, they switched us to National Interstate. In all of that time, we have faithfully paid our premiums on time and have never had a claim.

We are supposed to have a disappearing deductible, which means that for every year that we don’t have a claim, our deductible goes down by 10%. We also pay extra for full replacement coverage of our RV and contents.

So far, I am very unhappy with the response from both PoliSeek and National Interstate. Our crime happened late on a Friday evening. We called the next morning (Saturday), and got a message to call back on Monday. So we were left to fend for ourselves all weekend in 12 degree weather in northern Indiana with an RV with a window busted out. We could not leave the RV parked and unsecured and stay in a motel or everything else in it could have been stolen. Fortunately, Michele Henry from Phoenix Commercial Paint opened her shop up for us so we could get in out of the cold over the weekend.

On Monday, three days after the incident, I talked to the first claims adjuster, and he e-mailed me a Vandalism Affidavit and requested that I fill it out, have it notarized, and return it to him by fax. He also said to send him a list of any items that were stolen. I did so, and called him back an hour or so later to tell him that they had been faxed, and got a message that he was out of the office. As it turns out, he was out of the office for the next week.

We managed to contact a different adjuster, who said she was filling in for him, and she asked me to mail her hard copies of the forms, which we did. When I asked her about specific repairs and what was covered and how to get the repairs done so we could get back on the road and to warmer weather to avoid an incoming blizzard, her answer to every question was “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.” The shop that did the initial repairs so we could get out of cold, snowy Indiana is getting the same run around.

Once our motorhome was drivable again, the second adjuster said to go to Camping World in Robertsdale, Alabama to get an estimate for the repairs that are still needed. I did so and faxed National Interstate that information.

Monday, a week after I spoke to him, the first adjuster called back and wants to start from square one all over again, and when I asked about the repairs still needed, his answer was the standard “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.”

I was told that our disappearing deductible does not apply, because we also kept our bus conversion insured with them until it was sold. As for our total replacement coverage, that apparently only applies to items not physically attached to the RV, and guess what, there’s another deductible that comes into play there too!  When I ask why, the answer is “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.”

Yesterday I called PoliSeek, who is supposed to be my advocate, as I understand it. I was told that nobody there could help me, and was transferred to the original claims adjuster at National Interstate. He told me that “these things take time.”

How much time? It is now twelve days after we were victimized and we still do not know if we are on the hook for the repairs to our RV or if we will be reimbursed for our loss and damages. The shop in Indiana wants paid and has told us that if the insurance company does not pay them in a timely manner for the repairs, we are responsible.

The same claims adjuster called back later yesterday afternoon and told me the claim can take up to 180 days to settle. Then he e-mailed me more paperwork to fill out, more loss claims to have notarized and mailed in, and said he will turn it over to a field adjuster, who is supposed to contact us “soon” to make an appointment to come and talk to us.  

You can bet that I’ll be changing insurance companies and agents very soon! Some readers who use PoliSeek and National Interstate have reported good experiences with them, but they have totally dropped the ball on our claim, in my opinion.

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing. It’s a million little things.

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