Goodbye GEICO
I love the commercials- the guy dancing "the robot" is funny and my favorite is the one with the death row inmate hoping for a stay of execution and watching his attorney get a phone call and celebrate, only to discover that the good news concerns a savings with GEICO insurance.
My actual experience with the company, unfortunately, is a little darker. After 20 years with the GEICO, a switchboard operator figured a way to "rate-jack" me (like "carjack," only from someone you thought you knew). It's only a few hundred dollars a year, but what I experienced was pure manipulation of the facts and disrespect. In the abstraction of GEICO WORLD, I'll bet the operator even earned some kind of commision for losing a good, long-term customer. I argued my case by email with the customer relations people and in a four-letter back-and-forth, I think each response I received was from a different person. They were all polite and professional...and unyielding. I know that actuaries determine the rates and rules and other bean-counters determine policies, but it's hard to believe that losing a 20-year customer and his two kids forever for a small rip-off is in GEICO's best interest. I have paid and paid and paid, while GEICO has only had to give back a small amount to me. I have three cars and a motorcycle that I'm taking elsewhere.
GEICO claims that they have something like a 96% customer retention rate. I'm thinking that some of that is just inertia. It's a hassle finding a new company and getting your insurance changed over, but Auto Insurance In Depth ( http://www.autoinsuranceindepth.com/getting-a-quote.html ) will give you quotes from up to five different companies from a short, quick online application. I'm negotiating with an agent who will be the one person I deal with. I'm tired of the GEICO pass-around. I once even inquired about getting GEICO homeowner's insurance, but talked with an operator who could not let go of the fact that I do not have a fire hydrant in front of my house- even though the fire house and it's hydrant and trucks are directly across the street-less than 50 yards away! He never even called me back with a quote.
I realize that my business doesn't even pay for airing 10 seconds of one of GEICO's commercials and GEICO won't suffer any loss. That's fine- I don't care about that. My thinking is that I don't even care if I pay more somewhere else, although I think I'm actually going to save a few dollars by changing. I'm just tired of the officiousness and disrespect. I've been GEICO'd for the last time!
My actual experience with the company, unfortunately, is a little darker. After 20 years with the GEICO, a switchboard operator figured a way to "rate-jack" me (like "carjack," only from someone you thought you knew). It's only a few hundred dollars a year, but what I experienced was pure manipulation of the facts and disrespect. In the abstraction of GEICO WORLD, I'll bet the operator even earned some kind of commision for losing a good, long-term customer. I argued my case by email with the customer relations people and in a four-letter back-and-forth, I think each response I received was from a different person. They were all polite and professional...and unyielding. I know that actuaries determine the rates and rules and other bean-counters determine policies, but it's hard to believe that losing a 20-year customer and his two kids forever for a small rip-off is in GEICO's best interest. I have paid and paid and paid, while GEICO has only had to give back a small amount to me. I have three cars and a motorcycle that I'm taking elsewhere.
GEICO claims that they have something like a 96% customer retention rate. I'm thinking that some of that is just inertia. It's a hassle finding a new company and getting your insurance changed over, but Auto Insurance In Depth ( http://www.autoinsuranceindepth.com/getting-a-quote.html ) will give you quotes from up to five different companies from a short, quick online application. I'm negotiating with an agent who will be the one person I deal with. I'm tired of the GEICO pass-around. I once even inquired about getting GEICO homeowner's insurance, but talked with an operator who could not let go of the fact that I do not have a fire hydrant in front of my house- even though the fire house and it's hydrant and trucks are directly across the street-less than 50 yards away! He never even called me back with a quote.
I realize that my business doesn't even pay for airing 10 seconds of one of GEICO's commercials and GEICO won't suffer any loss. That's fine- I don't care about that. My thinking is that I don't even care if I pay more somewhere else, although I think I'm actually going to save a few dollars by changing. I'm just tired of the officiousness and disrespect. I've been GEICO'd for the last time!
posted by Man of Ages at 2:28 PM
13 Comments:
I'm having a similarly frustrating experience after 16 years of largely satisfactory service. I wonder what's going on with this company?
planetmoron- thanks for the comment.
I think that perhaps GEICO is getting too big and impersonal to deliver fair, honest service to its individual customers. In the grand scheme of things, GEICO probably makes more from ripping off long-term, complacent customers than it loses from those who won't stand for it and leave.
I hope you aren't switching to Allstate - they have incredibly low customer satisfaction ratings. (I'm in the process of leaving them - and I will be paying more, but the coverage is much better.)
I'm going to Progressive for auto and Texas Salect for home.
American Family has been good to me. However, I have one car, no tickets, issues, etc.
What do you mean "rate-jack?" What happened?
Thanks for the comments everyone. Craig- to make a long story short:
I was insuring an additional car with GEICO. The operator insisted on asking "review" questions on my other cars. She asked where one car was and I told her that my son had it at college (it is parked in a secure lot, used almost exclusively to get home and back).
She then told me that any time a car has changed location for thirty days, it needs to be reported and it must be insured from that location. I explained that it has never been away from home for thirty days, as my son visits home once or twice a month.
The Geico people then changed the criterion for changing locations: the car is at college more than at hom, so they will bill from the new zip code.
When I tried to explain that the car is used less than ever before at the college, a customer relations person wrote and told me that the new car location was not more expensive. In fact, the new "home zip code" drove the price from $1000 a year on my son's 1993 Prizm, for collision and liability, to $2000 a year for liability only. A subsequent customer relations rep has subsequently conceded that this is true.
My problem with all of this is that, ironically, GEICO was dancing "the robot" with me, blindly and inexorably, by any rationale, driving me to a higher premium with less coverage.
The whole experience felt pretty slimy.
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