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I work in an insurance call center handling complex technical calls, taking escalations, and handling some light underwriting work. Most of my calls are ho-hum technical calls, a lot of which involve me teaching reps more about insurance than training ever did. I handle escalations about billing and underwriting, which are almost always a variation of “How dare you tell me that you won’t insure me for free!” I work a late shift, so I handle more than just the Garden Variety Crazy or Demanding Karen. I handle the ones who are willing to call an insurance company at 2 a.m. to yell at someone.
There are so many reasons why I work a later shift. Chief among them is that I get paid more to do it, since no one wants to deal with the stoned, drunks, masturbators, prank callers, or some combination thereof. But I also get a lot of reading done between phone calls. The problem is that just as the reading gets good, I get a call and it’s inevitably a crazy person. Tonight is no different.
Picture it: Your intrepid writer is reading *Misery* while drinking a Diet Coke. It’s about midnight out east, so it’s died down. For those of you who don’t know, I rather enjoy Stephen King. Last time it was this quiet and I was this engrossed in a book, I was reading *Dreamcatcher*. Of course, I was rudely interrupted during probably one of the more terrifying parts of the book toward the beginning. But I’m almost done with *Misery* when a call comes through.
The customer is dropped directly into my line. No rep giving me any skinny about the shenanigans I’m going to face or why he (possibly) wants to hear my voice instead of the prior person’s. For one, that would have been too easy. It also would have been too helpful. Cold transfers: The bane of my existence.
Customer is blustering on and on about something. Specifically, he feels it’s unjust that removing a vehicle increased his premium. This makes absolutely no sense, NONE! He feels like we’re out to get him.
I look at the policy and see that yes, his policy premium increased by about 15% by removing the vehicle. But the remaining vehicle on the policy has also been marked as Business use at the same time. The vehicle that he removed did not. Business use has a surcharge associated with it because of an increased risk of loss (statistically speaking).
“So, Mr. Tightly Wound, for what purpose are you driving this vehicle?”
“I’m using it for work.”
“What kind of work are we talking here?”
“Errands for my boss, deliveries, stuff like that.”
Ugh. This is not going to go well for anybody. “What kind of deliveries, Sir?”
“Oh no, you’re not going to get me to admit to ***anything***. I know this call is being recorded!”
“Well, your policy prohibits most delivery uses for the vehicle. So I’ll ask again, what are using your vehicle to deliver?”
He thinks long and hard. “Pizzas.”
“Well, that would require a commercial policy. I’ll need to set this up for an underwriting cancellation and advise you to obtain other insurance before that date on the cancel notice that we will be sending out.”
“But delivering pizzas isn’t illegal!”
“No, but it’s not something we’ll cover on this type of auto policy, either. Again, I’ll advise you to obtain other insurance as soon as possible.”
“But I paid my premium in full!”
“Yes, and we’ll be refunding you for the unused portion. But we cannot keep this policy active much longer. You’ll receive a notice with your cancellation date.”
“But I paid in full.”
“That changes nothing about your situation.”
“You’re ripping me off. I’m going to talk with my agent tomorrow!” *Slams down the phone.*
Me, to the screen as I type up my note: “Please never come back.”
To top it off, the person who cold transferred this to me was none other than my absolute ***FAVORITE*** rep out there: Dim Bulb. Cherry on the $#it sundae, if you will.
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