Cost-U-Less Insurance

I worked for Freeway many years and the treatment to employees and service to customers are horrible. Freeway will charge on top of high broker fees, they will charge endorsement fees which are charges for any changes to your policy such as deleting/adding a car, change of address, adding/deleting a driver, etc. These fees are all for the agency including broker fees and a tiny percentage goes to the agent that is why they try to hit you high with broker fees so they can get some money out of you.

Broker fees are negotiable and should not be high. Employees are trained to pressure uneducated and order taking customers so watch out. If you guys get lied to or experience dishonest business, feel free to file your complaint with California Department of Insurance. Enough of these complaints can eventually shut them down.

Undisclosed charges noted as "fees", constant harassing phone calls urging renewal (though I already had changed carriers), invalid/expired mailing address in Rancho Cordova required for mailing notification of cancellation. Do not do business with this firm! Mailings urging renewal (with $45.80 renewal "fee") continue to come in despite my having cancelled coverage with these **!

Since I signed up with this auto insurance I have been harassed. I have not ever been late and I continue to get letters in the mail saying I owe a late fee or my insurance will be canceled. I recently had an auto taken off my policy and I was charged a $35 fee in which I paid and am still getting a letter in the mail stating I owe for this fee. It was paid in person on 12/6/2011.

I called Cost U Less (888)904-6224 and spoke with a gentlemen and he said his name was Rodrigo (916)427-1222 on Florin road. As he took my information and had me repeat my driver identification number three times. Then the business man quoted me $73 and $38 a month. So I told Rodrigo I'm on my way. But I live in North Sacramento. So i went to the Cost U Less on 2870 Fulton and was helped by Roberto. I informed him about the quote I was just giving by Rodrigo. So he agreed "Ok, let me see what I can do for you", or something in that nature, "Ok, let me see what I can help you with". So the quote I got from Cost U Less (Rodrigo) wasn't the same quote I went to pay for at Cost U Less (Roberto) and manager Chekise or Cherisse.

My overall experience was ok until I received my monthly bill from the company who wrote the policy. I wasn't told about their $13.00 installment fee for monthly billing. My bill was well over what I could afford to pay. My main concern here is that the manager, Dawn, of the Pittsburg, CA office, committed fraud while my policy was being written up by Desiree, who is one of the policy writers.

Desiree asked me if I wanted "Uninsured Motorists coverage." I replied, "No." Then I told her, "I only want the bare minimum coverage that CA says I must have in order to drive my vehicle." Desiree asked the manager, Dawn, to check the policy before she got my signature and my down payment. It turns out that, according to Desiree, Dawn told her to add the "Uninsured Motorist" coverage to my policy anyway. So Desiree added it, but did not tell me she did so. Dawn did not let me know that she instructed Desiree to add the uninsured motorist coverage.

The policy was written, signed, etc. and I was still not notified of the "extra" coverage they decided to give me without my permission or knowledge. I went back to their office the next day to finish paying off my down payment and one thing led to another and I was told that I had "uninsured motorist" coverage! That is considered "fraud"!

When I asked them to remove said coverage, I was told that it would cost me $35 to make that change to my policy! I hit the roof and left their office after I was told that they would have the manager, Dawn, look over my policy when she came in the next day, which is today. I called to speak with Dawn today as I was told to do. I was told by one agent that she was busy at the moment and offered to have Bianca help me. Bianca was the one who actually told me I had uninsured on my policy. Bianca told me that Dawn was called into an 'all-day meeting' out of the office so she couldn't speak with me. So which was it? Was she busy? Or, was she out of the office in an all-day meeting? I believe she was trying to avoid me.

I called and got a quote over the phone. Then he emailed me the quote, it was for $40.00 a month with only $72 down. When I got there to the location on Fulton Ave. Sacramento, the man took my personal documents, put them in a drawer then went on to tell me a different monthly price and a different down payment. When my father told him that we were going some place else and wanted my driver's license and car registration back, the man would not give it back. Then my father asked for them again, he still did not give it back. He turned around and said something to a lady who works there. He was holding us prisoners in the office by not giving me my documents back. I don't know if he was trying to make us get insurance with him or what, but it took 4 times of asking before he would take it out of the drawer and hand them back to me.

Cost U Less Insurance is a complete rip off. Remember they are a brokerage, so they will charge you a very high broker fee. They do this so that way the higher people up in the company can go on extravagant vacations all because the middle man, hard working class, that lives pay check to pay check, can fatten these rich arrogant people's pockets up. They will disclose the broker fee on their documents, however, they herd you in and out like cattle because the more policies they write, the more $$ they make.

They won't let you read the paperwork and they will explain it to what you want to hear. They split your down payment up, so that way, they can make more of the broker fee. The 2nd amount due is always the remaining amount of their broker fee. The down payment always includes the 1st month.They pull the bait and switch like no other. They will rate you as low as possible and quote you with no or very little broker fee to get you in the door and then you walk out of their office with a limp because they just hit you with a high broker fee. They can charge up to $300 or more on a broker fee.

Always remember this: They will intentionally not ask you a lot of questions over the phone as that only leads to them being able to use that against you. They will tell you, well you didn't tell me you had your license for 1 year or you didn't tell me your vehicle was an EX. I quoted you on the base model DX, or you didn't tell me you wanted $500 deductibles, I quoted you with $1000 deductibles. You didn't tell me your speeding ticket was on the freeway, I quoted you with a basic speeding ticket.

Or your license is suspended, that will cost you more and you lost your Good Driver Discount (Not True). These are all the tactics they use to make you, the consumer, feel like the bad guy and it's your fault when in fact, they are just treating you like just a dollar bill! I read some reviews in here and seen the name Stonewood, well guess what?...They own that company, so that just means more money for them. They try to place everyone with Stonewood, regardless if it's the cheapest rate as they get more kick back by putting you there. Obviously, commission and money driven and not a way of being on the consumers side.

Just do yourself a favor, stay away from Cost U Less Insurance. You can go to a place that doesn't charge you broker fees. Even despite that, go to a place where you will actually get good service. Not a place that will always try and charge you a broker fee for anything you do. Just deal with an insurance company direct, not a brokerage like Cost U Less. They will take your money and will never never refund you that money. It's in the documents that you sign that they do not disclose to you verbally. They will tell you, well you should've read what you signed. After signing 20+ pages of documents written by attorneys...wow! Just do yourself a favor and stay away from them!

My son just got a truck after 4 years of walking, bike riding, and skateboarding. He's so excited at last! He went to Cost-U-Less Insurance then came home to tell me he had paid for 6 months of insurance for $262. So when a bill came, we just thought they made a mistake. Then, when the state sent us a notice of no insurance, it caused a lot of problems in our household. After talking to them, we had only paid 1 month to Stonewood Insurance for $40 and the rest went to yeah you guessed it, Cost U Less. He had to go out and get a different insurance. This meant more out of pocket money before they impounded the truck.

My son called to get a quote for insurance, they told him it would be $569 for the year. They told him to bring in $53 for the "Down payment and first month fee". Which he did. Then when he went to the office, they told him because of the amount of people who just get 1 month of insurance to get their car through the DMV, they had instated a policy that they needed most of the year up front and that he needed to bring in another $315 towards "The first year".

A few days after he paid the $315, he received a bill for the actual "Insurance Company" and was told that he still owed $569 and his monthly payment was $60 per month instead of the $45 they originally told him. When he called Cost U Less, they told him, "No, that was our broker fees, and you still need to pay the insurance". I called them and they told me the same thing. Never did they give him any sort of paperwork stating that this was a brokerage fee or a breakdown of what he was paying for. They are crooks! I want to know if there is a way to get the $379 already paid to them back. They said it is a non-refundable fee!

I don't have money to spend on faxing. I can email and they wouldn't. I beleive this office is a fraud, never even called me back when reported vehicle stolen!

I dealt with Courtney out of Redding, CA. She quoted me a much lower price to lure me into the Redding Office. Then the price went up three times. $1121.00 (almost double what the phone quote was. She asked for two checks of $220.00, and I quote One is a deposit and one is the first months premium. I asked why so much and she assured me that once she faxed over my letter of experience the premium would go down to $158.00 and I would be reimbursed the difference.

I was never reimbursed anything and later found out that the deposit was actually their Brokers Fee. Nothing was EVER MENTIONED about a Brokers Fee. Two weeks later I found an insurance policy myself for $449.00 with very little effort on my part. I cancelled the Cost U Less policy and requested my Deposit back. Norm Cordova told me that they did nothing wrong and do not owe me a refund. I beg to differ!

I feel that Cost U Less outright cheated me by not verbally disclosing the fact that the first $220.00 was actually a Broker Fee, a deposit as Courtney called it is refundable. If I can find a policy more that half the cost of what they found me why would I want to pay them a Broker Fee? Not only do I feel that Cost U Less outright cheated me but I wouldn't be surprised to find that this practice is illegal. Can you please help me to get my $220.00 back.