My parents and I are dealing with a slightly odd situation with their regular insurance guy. We call him Guy.
Basically my parents have gone to the same local person for many years and they have always dealt directly with him for claims and other issues. He has always answered quickly and been good at his job.
My parents run a small business and have 5 vehicles on their policy. The listed drivers should be mom. dad. brother, and their one full time employee.
Back in November the ins. reached out because apparently employee forgot to renew his lisc. Guy notified my parents that had happened and that as of that day he was not insured and we better make sure he doesn't drive the company vehicle until we get it fixed. A few days later we sent over the proof he had gone and renewed it. Guy confirmed that employee was back on their car insurance policy as of 11/16/2023. Employee had a minor fender bender on 3/30/2024. We reached out about the claim via email on 4/4, 4/10. No one was answering us. We called on 5/6 and Guy's employee said "oh send that to me I'll take care of it and email you what you need I'm not sure why you didn't get a response." we waited until 5/10 and heard nothing. Called again on 5/10 and was told claim had been opened and he would forward that IMMEDIATELY.
All calls after 5/10 were ignored and sent to VM. Emails have been ignored as well.
Called Amica directly on 5/16 and was told that no claim was open. No record of the accident has been made. And that "employee" was never added back to the policy as a covered driver. Luckily we did have emails from November stating they had added him back and he was covered. So Amica has stated over the phone they will cover the accident because the broker is considered to be their agent and we have the email proof that as far as we knew he was added back on the policy then.
Here is the issue now: Amica phone support cannot edit the policy to add "employee" as a driver. Only Guy can do that. He is still not answering calls or emails.
What is likely going on here? If we really can't get him or his small staff to answer us what do we do?
What could be going on with my parents local insurance broker?
byu/redmayapril inInsurance
Posted by redmayapril
3 Comments
I’m gonna guess personal or medical issues with “Guy”, but given the time frame his staff should have “picked up” the load.
Almost sounds like Guy isnt there. Or the agency just isnt doing their job. Someone will have to physically go down to the office with the pertinent emails and raise a bit of hell.
My next steps would be another email saying you haven’t had a response in x time and saying something like : after many years of a good business relationship I would hate to have to involve the state insurance department.
That should get a response if possible
If not, actually report to the state department of insurance/ insurance commissioner.
Also, keep in your back pocket that if the claim doesn’t get resolved with Amica and the driver reinstated back to November, you definitely have grounds to make a claim against your agent’s errors and omissions policy for reimbursement. E&O policy info should be on file with the state with the agency license, may be publicly searchable on the state website.
I would also write notes to document your phone calls as best you can now, to preserve as much detail as possible. Screenshot phone logs if possible.
Good luck. This should be fixable if the agency does the legwork, but I agree, this sounds like a sudden severe health or mental health situation with insufficient succession planning.