{"id":28573,"date":"2020-10-19T21:17:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T01:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=28573"},"modified":"2020-10-19T23:09:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T03:09:27","slug":"an-insurance-company-haunted-by-kafkas-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/an-insurance-company-haunted-by-kafkas-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"An insurance company haunted by Kafka&#8217;s ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This has nothing to do with the Anglican Church but I thought it might be of some interest to anyone valiantly wrestling with an obdurate insurance company.<\/p>\n<p>We have had house insurance with Northbridge insurance using the broker Hub International for around 25 years. Upon a recent renewal, I discovered my rates had increased by 25%. The following is an account of the Kafkaesque experience of trying to find out why &#8211; it is a note to my contact at Hub asking her to cancel my policy (I have to sign a piece of paper, it seems):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thanks, I presume this means you want a physical piece of paper returned via the post office? Welcome back to the 20th Century.<\/p>\n<p>When we spoke I was walking the dog. Here is a more complete version of why I am cancelling:<\/p>\n<p>1. My premiums have increased by 25%. Last Monday I phoned to ask why. By some fluke I did eventually connect with a real person who transferred me to someone else (not sure who). That person didn\u2019t have any convincing explanation but she said she would look into getting a better rate and call me back on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>2. She didn\u2019t. Today (Monday) I called your office again a number of times \u2013 the 905 582 5500 #. The first couple of times I was placed in a queue. Eventually your end disconnected me.<\/p>\n<p>3. Naively, I thought I\u2019d try again and leave a message. After pressing the necessary number I was \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 disconnected.<\/p>\n<p>4. I called the claims number just to see if I could reach a real person. I did. She explained she could not deal with anything but claims. She gave me another number \u2013 877 495 8777. I tried it twice. Each time there was a ring no answer followed by a disconnect.<\/p>\n<p>5. I then phoned Northbridge. They told me I had to speak you. I explained your phone system is broken. She transferred me to a Hub manager. I spoke to her voice mail.<\/p>\n<p>6. With dogged determination, I called the 905 number again in order to try a directory search for someone called Silvy Wright who claims to be the &#8220;President and CEO&#8221;. Naturally, that got me nowhere and after a few minutes of generating some seemingly random DTMF codes, I was magically connected to an operator. She wasn&#8217;t too happy that someone had penetrated your company&#8217;s impressive defenses but she did grudgingly connect me to the voicemail of the &#8220;person who looks after me&#8221;: you.<\/p>\n<p>7. You called me back while I was walking the dog; in hindsight, I should have put you on hold for 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>8. Later this evening someone from Hub (Justine) in BC called me. Since I was sitting down at home I regaled her with the whole bizarre experience. She told me someone would call back tomorrow (Tuesday).<\/p>\n<p>All this and I still don\u2019t know why my premium has increased by 25%. I trust this will help you understand why, after 25 years of giving you my money, I am rather disenchanted with Hub.<\/p>\n<p>Please pass this on to your management and phone technicians.<br \/>\nFor the edification of others, I will be posting this on your Facebook site, Twitter feed, any review sites I have access to and a blog I run.<\/p>\n<p>Have a nice day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has nothing to do with the Anglican Church but I thought it might be of some interest to anyone valiantly wrestling with an obdurate insurance company. We have had house insurance with Northbridge insurance using the broker Hub International &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/an-insurance-company-haunted-by-kafkas-ghost\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2648],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kafka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}