Dealing with an incompetent agent/agency. Need advice.

So my business partner and I bought general liability and workers comp from a company who shall remain nameless (for now.) Our line of work requires COI’s for nearly all of our policies because the properties want to make sure they’re protected, which is understandable. They go through a 3rd party to make sure we are fully insured at their required minimums.

So here’s what happened. The company responsible for making sure our policies are up to snuff contacted the agency requesting COI’s for our umbrella coverage. We’ve were calling them every day for nearly a week trying to get the agent to do some work, because we literally can’t earn a living until we get our policies verified! So I’d call and call and we’d get the runaround from the receptionist, “she’s in a meeting, she’s at lunch, etc” so Thursday before Labor Day weekend rolls around, and I just know she’s already checked out, trying to take a 5 day weekend while we’re paying them to give us excuses as to why these COI’s can’t be sent.

After emailing her and cc’ing the verification company, I get an email from a company called certificial informing us that our policy has been cancelled in their system. I’ve never heard of them so I was thinking it was spam from another insurance affiliate. So Labor Day weekend comes and goes, and I’m sitting on my hands already knowing that nobody will help until Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I call. The receptionist is acting strange saying the agent will have to get back with us, “she’s in a meeting, she’ll be finished shortly” give her until 11 and I call again. She answers the phone with this strange tone asking me if I signed her name on a document. She says she can’t do anything until she gets an update. At this point I’m over it. I’ve waited nearly 2 weeks for them to do their job that I’ve already paid them to do. Later that day a guy from the fraud department calls me and begins to interrogate me about fraudulently making my own COI and forging the producers signature. He’s threatening me about this being a very serious matter and could have legal ramifications, he tells me they won’t be able to do anything until he finishes his investigation, and to let my business partner know that he should be expecting a call. That’s whenever I remember that email from Certificial. I get their contact info and email customer service about the email from them the week prior and about the call from the other company’s fraud dept. She tells me they are a company that auto-populates COI’s for agencies. I told her about the situation where I was being accused of forging my agents signature, she then tells me, “for their clients convenience they create the COI with the agents e-signature automatically. The agent likely forgot that is their standard procedure. I thank her and forward that to the fraud guy. He emails me back promptly and says he’s on the phone with certificial and he’ll call me back as soon as he’s done.

He calls me 15 minutes later and informs me that the investigation has been resolved. By this time I’m livid. I tell him about the runaround the week before Labor Day weekend, and how the agent made it sound like she was moving heaven and Earth to get these COI’s. All the while, she doesn’t even have to even sign her own name. But she did have to take a 4 day weekend and be so incompetent she accuses me of forging her signature.

He’s apologetic and I think he screwed up and let it slip out that it was, in fact their fault.

The next morning she answers right away like we’re highschool bff’s and I let her know that I know what happened, and she miraculously got everything else taken care of before lunch.

Sorry for the longwinded rant, but I need some advice. I can’t drop these clowns yet, because I will be destitute and bankrupt if I have to go through this bullshit again.

Is there any recourse for me? Can I get a refund for the 2 weeks where I paid them to do nothing besides lie about how much work they had to do, then accuse me of fraud, and investigate me? Thank you in advance for any suggestions. ✌️

TL:DR

Insurance agent lies about all the work she’s doing to get us compliant with apartment companies, come to find out they use a company that does everything for them including signing the COI’s. Then proceeds to accuse me of insurance fraud by forging her signature. Can’t drop them yet because I’m still waiting on approval from one more vendor checker. Need advice