jennings rampage

No, seriously, fuck you, Progressive.

Sit down, and I’ll tell you the saga of my car insurance.

Now, if you’ll recall, due to a serious of mistakes that I made when I was younger, I have horribly unsightly credit. And maybe you didn’t know this, but insurance underwriters love to believe in a causality between bad credit and bad driving. Remarkable, right? (Well, it might be possible. I might believe that drivers with bad credit are more expensive to insure than those with good credit, but not to the extent that the quotes I’d been getting would reflect.)

So anyway, when I bought my freshly washed Ford Contour a few weeks ago, I signed on for insurance with Progressive, on account of their catchy TV ads and reputation for low rates. They quoted me a six month policy, liability, collision, and comprehensive, for $1150. I know, completely obscene. But since this was the best rate I could find in the twenty minutes I had before my car deal was to close, I took it.

About a week later, I got a letter in the mail from the folks at Progressive, that, once I read the tiny print very very hard, informed me that they decided to reinsure my liability coverage and raise my premium to over $1800. This is when I flipped out. The letter they sent me flippantly suggested that another company may not decide to reinsure me and would be less expensive, and I was like, no shit. So I got on the horn to cancel my Progressive policy, and was like, “thanks for the bait & switch, now I’d like my refund.” And they were all, “yes, let’s see, on top of the $240 down payment you’ve already made, you owe us an additional $30 and change to cancel your policy after ten days of coverage.” And I was like, “you’re fucking kidding me.” And they were all, “nope.”

So I fought with them for awhile, and eventually talked my way into a $25 refund of my $240 down payment, which I accepted since there was nothing I could do short of take them to court. So that’s the end of my dealing with them, and here’s one for the search engines: fuck you, Progressive.

But the state of North Carolina and my usurious financing company both require that I carry car insurance, so it was back to the shopping around. I really couldn’t find decent rates on my own, all the leads I got from friends and whatnot really didn’t pan out for me. So earlier today, I plugged my information into yet another one of those “get insurance rate quotes!” websites, where I was put in contact with an insurance broker named Rick. And my friends, Rick hit a fucking home run — he got me set up with a policy with Safeco (the Seattle ballpark people) with a six month policy of $580. Liability, collision, comprehensive, all of it. MONEY.

Rick asked that give his digits to anyone I knew who was in the market for insurance, and I will do that gladly. That fucker saved me over $1200 in fifteen minutes, and I’ll tell you, I’m on the verge of joy-tears. Let me know if you need the hookup.