Loyalty is worth $4/yr...

I've been with the same insurance company for the last 22 years - Liberty Mutual. I got in one wreck last year, no fault of mine, my car was destroyed and I had a broken toe.

The thieves at Liberty Mutual totally screwed me over - they fought me every step of the way. Customer service constantly called me by my fathers name and could never understand that my name was Bryan, even when I yelled at them for it. They were willing to fix everything that someone could see was wrong from the outside of the car, like the bodywork, but they weren't interested in fixing any of the mechanials or electronics that were destroyed. After about 20 phone calls, I finally got them to agree to pay for about half of the damages to my car. Then they fought with the body shop. They totally convinced me that the full coverage insurance they'd sold me was a total lie - there was no way they were ever going to pay for damages to my car and the car was old and destroyed anyway - so I switched to liability-only.

Recently I bought a new car and needed full-coverage insurance. I didn't really want to use Liberty Mutual, but I was too busy to shop for insurance, so I called Liberty Mutual. They quoted me $930/yr for the new car, so I accepted and paid the first few months of the policy. I received insurance cards and a written policy in the amount of $930. Then they called back. They said that the $930 was a quote and wasn't exact since they didn't have the VIN, and that the actual price would be $1124/yr for the new car. Except that it was a total lie. I gave them the VIN from the start, and it wasn't a quote, they wrote a policy and sent it to me, I accepted and they took my money for it. But they were greedy and stood by their higher new price.

OK, time to start looking. I've seen those Geico commercials like three times an hour for the last 10 years and so I called them. You know what they say - they'll save you hundreds of dollars over what you're paying now. And they did. For the same coverage, they wanted $737/yr, or $387 less than Liberty Mutual.

I called Liberty Mutual and told them about the Geico rate. I made it clear that I would have been happy to have paid $200 too much, and that it was their greediness which caused me to start shopping around, and surprise, the first place I looked was $400/yr cheaper. They thanked me for being a customer for the last 22 years and asked for a chance to reconsider their rates, and I still didn't really want to go to the work of switching insurance companies, so I agreed. They took a day and came back with this response:

"Dear Bryan,

Thanks for allowing me review your account. As requested, attached you will find Automobile Insurance Proposal, we are unable to compete with Geico at this time. Thanks for insuring with Liberty Mutual and have a fantastic day :) "

Because I'd been a loyal customer, the attached proposal was for $1120. $4 cheaper than before, and only $383/yr more than Geico. :)

So I called back Geico and accepted. The guy on the phone could not have known less about insurance, so I gave up and accepted one of the packaged policies that appeared to be similar to what I had with Liberty Mutual, and hopefully without the "Broomstick-up-the-butt" rider the Liberty Mutual policy carried.

Then I called Liberty Mutual. They asked why I would even consider leaving after being a customer for 22 years. So I told them. They seemed sad that they were losing business, but they weren't willing to do anything about it, and they weren't sorry for lying to me. No problem - you're fired.

It occurs to me that they may be right - from what I can tell from other areas of life like relationships and jobs, loyalty is worth about $4 a year.

The New BAT-mobile...

Picked up the new BAT-mobile Saturday. It's a 2007 BMW 335i.

Here are a few things I hate about it so far:

- It ships from the factory with Runflat tires. And there's no lug wrench in the tool kit. Which is just as well since there's no jack. Since it has runflat tires, there was no need for a spare tire. So there isn't one. Oh, and there isn't a place for a jack, lug wrench or spare tire. Runflat tires are the roughest ride I've ever had.

- The turn signal lever always returns to the center. So to cancel the turn signal, you have to do the same motion again.

- The stereo gets louder when you speed up. No one needs this encouragement to speed. However the road noise doesn't get louder as fast as the stereo.

- The headlights swivel left, right, up and down to illuminate where the car is going. And it's really sensitive. So when you hit a bump...

- The keys are coded differently, so the car can sense which driver is approaching and can customize seat position and radio settings for whatever person is going to drive it. So when I pick up the wrong key, it slams me forward into the steering wheel and then fully inflates the lumbar adjustment in the seat, shoving me even further forward. Oh, and when you accidently pick up both keys? It switches every 5 minutes. While you're driving.

- The steering wheel tilt/swivel adjustment is manual. They put 14 motors on the seats (really) and no motors on the steering wheel adjustment. So it can't adjust itself for different drivers (see above). What kind of peasant adjusts his/her own steering wheel? Me, apparently.

- Premium fuel only.

- There is no dipstick. The computer will *tell* you if it's low on oil...

Bryan