The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

So I rang our insurer – Hiscox – only to be told they would not be willing to insure our house as we’ll be living overseas.

They were fine with insuring our house.

They were fine with insuring our house with tenants.

But because we were going to be living overseas, we were told:

“We don’t want to insure you”.

They used those exact words.

Now I don’t know if this is their general policy – I know we’ve had other insurers look after our house while living overseas – but their general attitude was pretty horrific, made even more pathetic when a couple of days later they sent us a letter saying, ‘we’re sorry you have decided not to use us again’.

Now maybe this was computer generated, but I wasn’t going to let them cancel me then blame me, so I sent a letter back pointing out that I had actually wanted to extend my policy but they decided “they didn’t want me”, despite me always paying their higher-than-average policy rates on time.

You’d think that would be the end of it … but then I got a letter a day or so later. Not to apologise. Not to thank me for my previous custom. But to offer me ‘a deal’ to renew my house insurance with them again.

What the absolute fuck.

The next day, I got another correspondence from them. This …

So they acknowledge they made a mistake offering me a deal they had no intention to fulfil. But they failed to acknowledge their terrible service to a customer.

So I wrote to ‘Bob’ to explain how his companies ‘premier service’ was more Premier Inn than premier. And that’s not being fair to the Premier Inn, because every time I’ve stayed there – and I’ve stayed there a lot – the service has been great.

Not great in proportion to their price.

But great.

And while I have never accepted the maxim that ‘the customer is always right’, I can assure you neither is the company.