AAA — A Puzzle Game
I don’t know if you’ve shopped insurance lately, but I have. It’s bananas. You get different questions, stories, prices, policies, requirements, timelines, and levels of service from every company or sometimes even phone number within the same company. One company required a water leak detector. Have you ever heard of one of those?
I’ll share my ongoing experience. Spoiler alert: don’t read on if you want to try your hand at AAA for yourself.
I tried to get home (fire) insurance from AAA years ago and they didn’t want to insure the type of house I have. So I went to Farmers who had a really easy process. This year I thought I’d check back with AAA. Oh dear.
ABC
Sales people seem so helpful when they are closing you. Things have changed. We can help. What’s your credit card number? Then reality begins. Step 1 was nice prices, no problem, signed up.
Month 1
AAA sends out an immediate policy document and welcome package. Within days there is now a process beginning with underwriting which requires a lot of specific photos. No big deal. Weird that you already took my money and sent a policy document. Meanwhile I had broken up with Farmers and the won’t take me back because they were no longer interested in new Californians and our past meant nothing. New agent, who dis?
So next level in this game begins with AAA cancelling whatever policy they just sent you. I just sent you pics though!?! My home is charming. I even included that cute blow up pool picture as a little joke for your pool picture request. Nope! Not taking my calls. Not returning emails. Silent treatment. Moneys gone. Policies are gone (earthquake and fire). Real escape room situation.
I try to call in to a new random agent for a clue. She says there is a hold and they are waiting on photos. Did I meet with the independent company that has an app for virtual inspections? Aw well played. The list of photos needed was a trick. I get her to put in a request for this mysterious individual who can point me to an app and send me a secret code to do a live photo shoot. Good thing I called?
OneXperience app is the tool and Tim is the director and judge of photos. If you make him happy it goes a long way with the lords of underwriting. Am I insured anymore? Who knows. I’m told by agents this is the usual game.
Month 2
Silence since the last photoshoot. My application is married to the sales agent. She seemed so nice. Will she ever talk to me again? I try all the usual routes again and this time enlist a support agent to send a Teams chat message. Doesn’t work at first, but with another round of calls and emails, bam! Spell is cast. A new clue!
I’m told the underwriter spotted that I was sold slightly more coverage than minimum required by mortgages. Stop everything. Which did I want? Underwriters are powerful but not psychic! I choose to stay with the original policy that’s documented somewhere and maybe paid for. Boom! One policy unlocks and appears in my dashboard the next day. The other? Well I’m still on that level and started with a fresh email and a new trick — submit a problem via the app.
The App
If you go to the App Store, you can find a AAA app. If you can manage the proper login it will launch the download of the secret, true AAA app. The white one is a decoy against potential invaders. The blue one is for the chosen.
Mysterious Treasure
In the past few days, I have received three separate mysterious AAA refund checks of various amounts from overpayments. What overpayments? Don’t ask questions. Your still a lowly peasant awaiting on earthquake policy hold. The sacred blue app shows that I owe money. Again, no idea why. So I pay. Easy come. Easy go. If you love money, set it free and see if it returns. I just checked the dashboard details to see I owe some insane amount of money, almost 3x the agreed and paid policy amount. So I’ll start over tomorrow.
Rule #1 in AAA is we don’t directly ask questions of assigned agents. You must collect clues and find alternate ways to find information. I even sent a text to photo director Tim, but he just repeated that things were in submitted to the underwriter. Dead end.
I will get through all the levels and populate my policies on my dashboard. I will. I’m told staying insured is simple and easy after you’ve proven yourself worthy.