Hello fellow chatters,
I just want to take a moment to sing the praises of Saltmarsh Insurance Agency of Winchester, and in particular, Donna. Just before Christmas I was in an accident. Some idiot stopped, for no reason that anyone, including the idiot, could articulate in the middle of an intersection. He was rear-ended and then I rear-ended the Jeep that hit him. Neither of their cars had much damage, but because my bumper was lower than the Jeep’s spare tire, it crumpled my hood. My poor Buick looked like it went through a demolition derby. Sigh.
Well, I dutifully contacted my agent and they put the claim into Commerce for me. It took weeks for it to go through, but after calling Donna, she finally got things moving right along and I got my check within three or four days of calling her. I took it over to the shop to get repaired. While it had been in the shop, the adjuster calls me up and says that my rental car will go away shortly. I pointed out how it had taken nearly four weeks for them just to get me a check to get my car repaired and he backed down and told me he would authorize the car for a longer period. He left it at that.
Yesterday I finally got my car back. It looks great. I dropped off the rental car, contacted the agent to let him know everything was complete on my end and was just plain happy to get my car back.
Well, it cannot end that easily. Commerce’s claim adjuster calls me up this morning and tells me that they are only going to pay for the first 37 days I had the rental car, nothing else. I became a tad bit upset by this news and reminded him that he had told me that they would pay for longer, much longer as I was authorized for a $60 a day car and only took a $30 a day car. In addition, I pointed out, that it took them nearly a month to get their check to me so I could get it to a body shop, and during that month the car sat at my home, not at a shop where they were being charged storage. He became very defensive and told me it was my problem. I informed him flat out that I would take this to court and he promptly got off of the phone.
I called Donna at Saltmarsh. She was very nice, listened quietly to me rant and rave, and then said she would look into it. Donna not only looked into it, she called me a while ago and let me know that it was all take care of, that Commerce would pay for the rental car for the entire time I had it. Hooray for Saltmarsh and hooray for Donna. It really does make sense to have an insurance agent that will fight for you with the agency! ~ Thanks again Donna and Saltmarsh, you made a bad situation much better!
Frank
