Personal Finance

A couple years ago I got a letter from my bank offering a discount for using Liberty Mutual Auto Insurance. They weren’t asking me to switch, just letting me know that because I was a member at the bank, I would get a better rate than others. When I moved to Ohio and Geico first failed to update my address (that I had given them previously) then failed to send me a renewal notice (I didn’t realize they had not updated my contact info until I policy expired because I pay upfront each year) and THEN had the gall to almost double my rate because I had “allowed my insurance to lapse” I knew it was time for a change.

I bought a policy from Travelex (TravelLite) for myself and my two children (adding them was free with my policy) for a 3 week trip to Alaska to visit family. We had no health insurance at all at the time and i wanted to be sure if anything happened we’d be covered.

My daughter woke up one morning with what we thought might be appendicitis. I called Travelex and told them we’d find a local doctor, they said fine and let them know what happened. We found one who could see her and he too thought it might be appendicitis. So he sent us to a surgeon for a consult. That surgeon determined that is was most likely NOT appendicitis and sent us home with instructions to watch for certain things.

I like having all my insurance with one company, so we had Farmers ins. for 35 years. But the service got worse and worse and the rates just kept climbing especially on our cars. When we sold one home and bought another in 2003, I had just paid a year’s premium the end of April. We closed on our home in June and I applied for a refund. Keep in mind that our previous home had only been insured for 45 days of the yearly premium. When I finally got a refund, (and I had to fight for that), the company kept almost half the annual premium…for 45 days coverage!

When my wife and I had our first kid back in July we (among other things) reevaluated our financial needs and our current life insurance. After determining that my wife needed to up her term life insurance we started shopping around online for the best prices and the best options.

About four weeks later we’ve completed our application process and have received her policy from Prudential. While I certainly hope I’ll never have to actually use the policy, I’m definitely confident that we made the right choice with life insurance.

Hi there,

Schlamozzel here with another Slumlord Brand (TM) review from along the long LONG road of dealing with the death of a family member. Today we have a nerve-shattering visit with “The Sound of Silence-Company” better known as Northwestern Mutual Life.

As many of my faithful friends and readers know I had lost my father a while ago. Being left behind amid a plethora of “details” was something I myself had not really figured into the equation of “family loss”. Through our lives we are exposed to video images and verbal advertisments from insurance companies and money managers. All of which tout how well taken care of a decedent’s remaining loved ones will be, should they choose to partake of the products and or services that they “sell”. We see images of some nicely dressed, clean-shaven person cheerfully handing a benefit check to comforted people with smiling faces.