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Taune of Brooklyn MI (01/19/09)
I got an initial quote from them for 787.66 for 6 months. Low and behold, days after I purchased the policy, they upped my premium to nearly 1200 for 6 months, and claimed that it was the result of 1 speeding ticket for 5 miles over that occurred 2 years and 9 months ago.

I had correctly filled in all of the information they had requested in the initial quote. I talked with an insurance agent there named Emily, and she refused to do anything about this, even though their systems at checkpoint were apparently down at the time I purchased the policy.

This smacks of bait and switch to me, and I will not be doing business with them in the future. I am cancelling my policy, and based on what I have read in this column, I will be putting a stop payment on any further electronic withdrawls from my account by this company.

Patricia of Tarentum, PA January 12, 2009

Patricia of Tarentum PA (01/12/09)
I was rear ended by one of their customers. I initially was contacted or contacted them on 12/15/08. I called the same rep within 24hours to notify her that the body shop could indeed take photos and send a quote over to esurance. I called again daily for the remainder of the week without response. I again called the following week where the rep said when we last spoke I was to get back to her with more information. I nicely explained that I called daily with out hearing from her. Her response was Okay, okay. my son was sick and I was out a few days. We finally worked things out and I was given info to contact their enterprise car rental rep for Esurance.

I called this rep several days with no response. I tried calling the phone number (800) to talk to another rep or just try to get some help or guidance. After 30 minutes of pressing #1 to talk to a rep/continuing to hold I hung up. I then called the inital rep that I started (Raquel) and told her my situation. I was to drop of my car this evening and really needed to set up my rental and that I did not hear from Maureen who she instructed me to call to set up the rental car. She informed me that oh, yeah, she was off for a while, put me on hold to look at my claim. She did attempt to help but what I mostly got was aggravation and being told that people will call me back...of course they did not.

I myself called several enterprise locations without luck in obtaining a rental. I did however get on a couple waiting lists. I again called Raquel and told her that I did not hear back from anyone and she seemed so surprised. She then told me she was in the middle of something and would call the first rental location that we started with to get set up for an afternoon rental (I start work at 8am and we were trying to get something earlier for my work schedule). She was going to finish what she was working on, call the rental place and call me back. That was around 4:30 p.m. It is now 6:23 p.m. and I never heard back.

I have since then called the first rental place myself and of course they no longer have any cars available until Wednesday. I called the second location, which I am on the waiting list, and they are saying that I should have a car tomorrow. If they told me that I could have done this myself in the first place, I would have. I have only had two car accidents in my driving years, both of which were not my fault and never experienced such awful customer service. My insurance company did everything for me last time. I have now learned I should of let them this time.

My husband and I are a two car family due to us both working. We are now short a car and have kids that need our car for transportation to and from their bus stop. It is just a shame that we allow this type of customer service in this day and age. I also now have to miss 2 plus hour of work so that I may use my husbands car to get myself to work and then leave early to ensure that he can get to work on time. I would NEVER reccommend Esurance to any one ever.

Scott of Thonrton, CO January 6, 2009

Scott of Thonrton CO (01/06/09)
My auto insurance policy was up for renewal so I decided to shop around. I got a quote from Esurance which was roughly 40% less then what I was paying today for the same coverage. I made the decision to switch to Esurance and also increase some coverage over what I presently had. I proceed to fill out all the information they requested to the best of my knowledge and provided my credit card for payment. Before I clicked the pay now? button it told me my 6-month policy premium would be 536.65. After they charged my credit card I was immediately notified that they needed to verify some information with my prior insurance company.

I called Esurance and we did a conference call with my prior insurance company, Travelers. Travelers provide some basic information about my existing policy to Esurance. I was immediately told that I didnt provide the correct bodily injury coverage that I previously had with Travelers to Esurance when I filled out their online application and as a result they were going to immediately raise my premium by over 37%! By mistake, I placed what I wanted my new bodily injury coverage to be not what it currently was with Travelers. With Travelers I had 25,000/50,000 and I wanted to increase it to 100,000/300,000 with Esurance. By mistake I selected 100,000/300,000 when I filled their online application.

Esurance told me this impacts how much they charge for the insurance premium. Why would an insurance company care whether I had more or less coverage with my previous insurance company? How does this have any factor in determining how much to charge somebody for their new insurance? This smells like a bait-and-switch where Esurance lures new customers with unrealistic prices then after you sign-up and give them your money they immediately change the price on you. I realize insurance companies have 60-days to change the price when additional information is discovered.

Typically, if you had speeding tickets or DUIs they uncover, I understand they are entitled to raise or cancel your insurance. But to immediately raise my premium for something that seems trivial seems very fishy. Had I known that they were going to charge me what they wanted at the end I would have never went with Esurance. I immediately cancelled the policy and went back to Travelers and await my refunds from Esurance.

Clair of Schaumburg, IL January 6, 2009

Clair of Schaumburg IL (01/06/09)
my accident occurred on Nov. And yet~ i still did not get the check from them. It was a very simple accident. the car behind me hit my car. my car was damaged, but they did not let me have the rent car. It is impossible to talk to people in this company. Worst of Worst...

Kevin of San Clemente, CA January 3, 2009

Kevin of San Clemente CA (01/03/09)
On April 4, 2007 I was rear-ended by on the freeway by a hit and run driver who was insured by Esurance. They were travelling 80+ MPH when I was hit. I was travelling about 60 MPH. I was rammed into the center divider and my car was destroyed in the accident. I was taken away by ambulance with a severely sprained back and was disabled for several weeks. Esurance acknowledged 100% liability. However, they refused to pay any of my medical or other accident related bills at the time and for over a year after that.

They insisted that it was my responsibility to pay all of my own medical bills and other expenses and that they would offer a settlement. Their offer was unreasonably low and amounted to approximately 267 above and beyond my medical bills, lost wages and other expenses. Esurance maintained an completely unreasonable and unsympathic posture during the whole ordeal. At one point, they stopped communicating with me altogether. I was absoultely devastated at the way they treated me. I then filed a complaint with the California Department of Insurance in the hopes that they would make them act responsibly. That turned out to be a complete waste of time.

As far as I am concerned the California Department of Insurance is an absoutely useless, mismanaged bureacracy that allows companies like esurance to get away with the things that they do including fraud. That's probably why there are so many absolutely incredible stories stories on your website where people just get ripped off. The California Department of Insurance refused to answer any of my questions as to whether or not esurance had the right to force me pay my own medical bills and other accident related expenses (including finance charges) and whether or not they were breaking any rules by making an unreasonably low offer.

They also dragged my complaint out over an entire year and failed to respond to several of my e-mails or return my phone calls. The representative at the Department of Insurance that I was working with stated that they were too overloaded and underfunded to handle my complaint and that it was not unusual to take a month to respond to my enquiries.

To complicate matters even further, esurance produced a back-dated fraudulent letter to make it appear that they had never broken off communications with me. The claimed to have sent it by certified mail, but no such record was found. There was plenty of other evidence that they had back-dated the letter also. I then asked the Department of Insurance fraud investigation unit to investigate for fraud but they refused and also do not respond to my e-mails. All I can say is that I have lost all confidence in our insurance system including the regulators as well.

There are no checks and balances. I eventually ended up having to settle with esurance because I just did not have the staying power in this economy and because I did not want to ruin my credit rating. I lost money considering all of the time, effort, pain, suffering and hassle of the whole ordeal. Conclusion: Companies like esurance get away with all kinds of things because the regulatory agencies do nothing.

Howard of Blounts Creek, NC December 26, 2008

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