Florida: Insurance companies don't need a mask and a gun.

[Cyrano]

Just before Wilma hit, I switched my car insurance company. (I live in Palm Beach County and fortunately, my home damage is minimal.)

I didn't have electricity until yesterday and my new insurance company confirmed my car was covered. I called my old company to cancel my policy and was told that would cost me 10% of my policy.

Checking on this, I was told that Jeb Bush had signed a law that insurance companies could charge for early cancellation. You gotta hand it to the Bush boys. If there's a way to screw us, they'll find it.

My biggest hope is that Jeb hasn't given insurance companies a way out of paying for Florida property damage due to Wilma.

This aside, a hot shower after a week can seem like paradise. And compared to much that happened down here, I'm lucky as hell.

[Nikki Stone 1]

1. It's real stories like yours that need to get out there

Thanks!

[hobbit709]

2. I'd tell them

they can charge what they want, I ain't paying.

[Cyrano]

3. hobbit709: You need to understand how badly they can screw us.

You don't have collection companies who will pursue those who owe you.

You don't have staff lawyers to help you.

You don't have any power in the "land of the free and the home of the brave".

If you don't pay, they will destroy/shred/ruin your credit rating. They will screw you so badly that you won't be able to buy a loaf of bread without cash or gold.

I'm sorry to be the one who has to wake you up to the realities of the country we now live in. But don't take my word for it. Skip paying your next bill from some corporation and you'll find out the degree of our servitude.

[hobbit709]

6. My credit rating is already screwed

idle threats don't bother me. I had one collection agency threaten all sorts of stuff-my response was "I don't respond well to two things-Threats and stupidity and you're guilty of both" I told them if they're not getting "A" what made them think they were going to get A+B?
After a while they left me alone-eight years later I have almost as much credit as what I had at the time.

[lynne]

4. Is that a new law in Florida? It's called a "short-rate" cancellation -

- and it was going on in my state at least 40 years ago although I believe that it may have ended in the last year or two.

The company charges you a service fee computed as a percentage of your premium when you cancel a policy before the contract has expired. Not unusual at all - not only for insurance companies but for any type of contract that you wish to opt out of early. I remember paying $150. to get out of a cell phone contract some years ago.

Pretty much a normal business procedure where contracts are involved.

[Cyrano]

5. " ... a normal procedure."

lynee, I learned long ago that the world is made up of fuckors and fuckees. Generally, when we deal with corporations, we are the fuckees.

And if this is to be considered, "... a normal procedure," how about if we all get together and change the rules?

As far as I'm concerned, what is considered a "normal procedure" by corporate America always involves a tube of KY Jelly. And guess who gets to bend over.

Corporate America has been screwing us for so many years that we have become docile and brain dead. Unless I'm mistaken, we are the customers. And it's way past time that they were reminded of this.

[welshTerrier2]

7. Woody Guthrie from the song "Pretty Boy Floyd"

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.