January 2013: The Month Without A Journey (Update, and Thoughts, and Thoughts, and...)

I'll start this with an update from my last post:  no progress was made with either my insurance company, or with the PA State Police. At this point, I had spent $800 in car rentals out-of-pocket:  $450 one-way from PA to NY plus 6 days, and then $350 local for a week. In attempting to limit my out-of-pocket expenses, and therefore limit that amount I’d have to eat if the insurance process determined that I was not reimbursable, or limit the amount that I would have to hand over (and pay) a lawyer to try to get reimbursed, I went car-less for two weeks. (From my last post:  Mon 1/7/13, 7AM:  I turned in my car rental. For the sake of managing my cash flow, I decided to not rent another car until it’s absolutely needed. Instead, I have to go out of my comfort zone and ask for help; ask for favors from friends, which I have a hard time doing.) 

By the end of last week, I had gotten to my point of no return:  I couldn’t continue to remain car-less. The weekend before 1/7, I bought three weeks-worth of groceries. At that time, I had hoped this would be resolved.  Each weekend during that stretch, the weather ended up being nice, so I was able to walk two blocks to a 7-11 down the street to pick up small essentials (milk, eggs, etc.) I did get a ride back-and-forth to work; but I also had the bus as an option – lucky for me that the bus option only meant an extra 15 minutes on my commute and only costs $1 one-way. I’ll come back to all of this later…

…anyway, by the end of last week, I had gotten to my point of no return. It was time to accept that fact that I would have to find a way to “eat” the $4,400 difference on my car loan, and have that amount included in any financing on a newer car. My plan:  start at my original dealer, ask for a new 2012 leftover or used 2011 car, and pull out all of the negotiating stops to try to keep my monthly payment the same as I had been paying before. Again, in my mind and in the “general” theory, since this accident wasn’t my fault, I shouldn’t be out anything financially. And to me, that means I should not have a higher monthly payment. But that also means that I am not necessarily entitled to a NEW car, since I had been driving a 2011. SO, it was time to rent another car so I could start wheeling and dealing (pun intended). 

Tue 1/22:  after work, I took a bus to the airport to pick up my rental car. (In my experience, airport-based car rental offices are much better equipped to deal with the rental process and offer much more flexibility, compared to local offices. Since I live only 15 minutes from the airport, I generally rent my cars from the airport.)  I drove from the airport to my original car dealer, where I walked in and put it all on the line. I told the salesperson that basically, I bought my 2011 from them, it was totaled (here’s the picture), I’m fighting with insurance, I want a 2012 for the same monthly payment or less, I have a $4,400 leftover loan balance, I’m eligible for dealer and manufacturer loyalty discounts AND Xerox corporate discount, I have online pricing already reviewed and three other dealers in mind if you can’t come up with something. He said he’d be back in a second, and he came back with a major surprise:  the bank that I had my loan through automatically includes gap insurance in their loans. 

HUH? 

That meant that the $4,400 was no longer an issue. So, to make a long story short, I was able to get a new 2013 Subaru, with a cheaper monthly payment, which I picked up on Friday 1/25. And that sounds like the end of the story. It’s not – although, it is the end of the biggest piece of the story, which I’ll come back to in a second.

That same day, I returned my rental car; another $350 tacked onto the insurance fight.  So, even though we reached the climax of this drama, the epilogue has yet to be written:  how, if, and when, will I be reimbursed the $500 deductible and $1,050 in car rentals that I have paid out-of-pocket?

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My Response to Progressive's Customer Satisfaction Survey

On January 14, I posted an update about my car accident, and the resulting insurance claim process. Within a day or two of that post, I received an automated e-mail, asking me to complete a survey about my satisfaction of the processing and closing of my claim.

A claim which, by the way, was and still is open and unresolved.

After marking my survey with "Strongly Disagree" for just about all of the answers, the below is what I submitted as write-in comments:
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When I filed the claim, I asked that my cell phone be used as my primary phone, as I was going to be out of town and away from work for the next 5 days.  The only phone number that anyone has used has been my work number. So even though my claim rep's initial call was made that day, along with an e-mail to my work e-mail, I did not receive that message until my return to work.

At that point, I had left 2 other messages with my cell phone number before finally receiving a call from a back-up claim rep, who did answer the general questions that I had at that point.  Over the 3 weeks after that, I left at least 4 messages before getting a return call with a status.  I then left another 5 messages stating that I had general questions, and only had those questions answered when my 6th call was answered.

I also placed 4 phone calls to the medical claim rep, who has yet to return any calls.  I did get my questions answered by calling a general 1-800 number myself, so at this point, I do not need a return call.

My car loan was paid off relatively quickly.  I do have other outstanding bills that are pending receipt of the accident report so that the party-at-fault can be identified, but to be honest, I can't be sure how hard anyone is working to get the report in order to resolve the rest of my claim.

In addition, I did have a policy renewal fall in the middle of this.  I did renew my policy, as I felt that a cancel of the policy with an open claim would further delay the processing of my claim.

As my claim is not resolved, I do not believe I should be receiving a survey asking my opinion about how satisfied I am with the handling of your claim, in past tense.

I have had to deal with 4 different departments during this process, which I do not believe falls under the category of "easy".

Finally, with all of the advertising that is done on TV, radio, and the Internet, I feel that my claim experience is far worse than what is portrayed in that advertising.

I was not injured in my accident, fortunately.  The worst part of my accident at this point has been my experience with Progressive.  At this point, I cannot and will not recommend Progressive to friends, family, or colleagues, and in fact, I am recommending to those who have Progressive to change their insurance company.

My Thoughts (And Digressions) On The Manti Te'o Situation

I spent the morning watching ESPN SportsCenter, and one of their lead stories was that they were able to interview Manti Te’o about his role in this now infamous hoax. (As with any other major mainstream media story, I refuse to put a spiffy, catchy title on it.)  Was Te’o purely a victim? Was he a knowing part of the hoax? Was he initially a victim who didn’t come clean? As usual, when the initial story broke on Wednesday, those questions was raised, and then society began to come up with the quickest opinions, then answers, and then reactions, as soon as possible, before finding out the story from all sides. (I normally would have written “facts” instead of “story”, but I have a feeling we will never know what all of the facts are.)  I was initially confused about what happened, and as the week went on, my confusion increased more than it cleared. The ESPN interview was not taped, as requested by Te’o, so what I saw was the interviewer’s (Jeremy Schaap’s) careful take on the interview. For me, some of the confusion cleared up, enough so that I could place this situation into a context that could end any additional curiosity on my part.

That context is this:  regardless of what else we may learn; regardless of whatever other facts, sides, stories, spins, etc., comes out of there from here forward; I find the process of the hoax intriguing.

My Thoughts On The Lance Armstrong Situation

Well, here’s the next big trial in the Court Of Public Opinion:  Lance Armstrong.

My thoughts?

I’m not going to attempt to judge the man. I’m not going to attempt to speculate on what he was thinking, or what he meant. I’ll point this out in a few places as I go along. But this is a complicated story. It seems to me that in the Court of Public Opinion, too many times, we try to summarize our opinions, judgments, and feelings about the topic at hand as a singular statement. I think the reality of most of these situations is that if I attempt to come up with a single thought, I have to disproportionately weigh an aspect, and I think that starts to distort the situation. So, I usually choose to keep distinctly-different aspects of a situation separate, and not fall into the trap of trying to make my opinion fit some kind of acceptable mold or length.

Also, just as a quick note, I’m writing this before the airing of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, and I am not at all interested in watching the interview. I am also not interested in hearing all of the opinions and analysis that is going to come after the interview. In my opinion, in the course of these public “come clean” interviews, the focus turns into judging what was said, what wasn’t said, how it was said, etc., and as I said above, I am not interested in judging. I’m not interested in the person, I’m interested in the impact.

So, with that said:

January 2013: The Month Without A Journey

Yes, this is another one of those posts that is going to start with the following sentence:  “Well, I haven’t written in a while…” 

Why? Well, I’ve had no journeys since my last post – the post about my accident which totaled my car. When I last wrote, I ended the post with my arrival back home on the day of the accident:  Friday December 21, 2012, at 11:30PM. So, what has happened since then?