When I took Mochi out last Wednesday I found this rude surprise in my parking space:
Nothing was stolen, but I think I’d almost feel better if something was. Then at least there would have been a reason for what appears to have been just random vandalism. I’d been parked at home all day so I’m not really sure when it happened. Pretty disturbing for our quiet neighborhood. The broken glass scratched up the paint a little bit but other than that and the window itself there was no other damage.
The process of getting the glass replaced was interesting, and by interesting I mean confusing and frustrating. I called the insurance company to find out what my deductible was and what impact filing a claim would have on my rates. After being transferred around to multiple agents, they agreed the deductible was $250, and that “glass-only” claims rarely impact your premiums. I didn’t really want to settle for “rarely” and wanted to know for sure.
But they couldn’t say for sure. I was told in ambiguous terms, “Any claim can impact your premium.” So I asked, “By can, do you mean will?” And the agent still couldn’t say. Seriously? I can’t have been the first person to ask this.
To add to the confusion, the insurance company doesn’t actually handle “glass-only” claims, instead they’re outsourced to another company. After being transferred back and forth a number of times, the outsourced glass company tells me the repair will be $190. Fine, less than my deductible, no insurance involved. But then they gave me a claim number, explaining that even though the insurance company won’t be paying anything they still need to make a claim. I balked at this, not wanting to take the risk of increased insurance rates for zero benefit.
Back and forth and back and forth, until I somehow must have spit out the right combination of words so they understood I’d just pay for it out of pocket with no insurance claim. Then they said the price would be different. Ok how much more to do it that way? Still less than the deductible?
$186. Four dollars less than the original potential-premium-raising-zero-insurance-benefit-quote. Ridiculous. So the glass guy came out and fixed the window the next morning. He tried to charge more than the quote but thankfully I had the amount in writing in the confirmation email. Glad that project is over and hopefully it won’t happen again.
I don’t think I have any enemies here, but this quote from Goldfinger comes to mind: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” I guess a couple more broken windows and I’ll have to start getting suspicious.
