Life, Intelligent Life and...Insurance Companies

We've had a bad day dealing with insurance companies.  Another request from a Member firm to set up an agency with PruProtect left our administrator banging his head against the wall - as this was infinitely less painful than dealing with the insurer in question.  As I was putting the final touches to a rude letter to Scottish Provident regarding their mindless policy indexation review, I received a call from another Member firm which is being driven demented by Zurich.

Their experience is so inexplicable, so contrary to any notion of rationality, that for a brief moment it took my mind off our own immediate concern.  You'll love this one.

Members may know that, fairly recently, Zurich took the unilateral decision to stop setting up new agencies upon request.  Instead, they will only set up an agency upon receipt of business.  So far, so good.  Except...the insurer refuses to pay indemnified commissions to regulated firms which do not already have an agency.  Now, I know that indemnified commissions are not the be-all and end-all, but for newly setup IFA firms, they may sometimes be a useful source of revenues.  Given that our Members are regulated by an already authorised IFA firm which already holds master agencies with Zurich, can you identify a single strand of logic to the insurer's practice here?

Nope.  Thought not.  Back to Scottish Provident (now under new ownership!!!!).  Here's our final letter to the company.  You might get from this a sense of sheer desperation.  Trying to locate someone within the insurer who is capable of an informed, rational response is rather akin to SETI's monumental initiative to locate other intelligent life in the universe...

Scottish Provident
Manager - Customer Services
301 Vincent Street
Glasgow
G2 5HN


10/12/2009


Dear Sir or Madam.

Re. Client Ref. 

I am attaching for your attention copies of various items of correspondence received from your company in respect of the indexation / annual review of the above policy.

To say that we are reaching the very edge of the possibilities of intelligent enquiry would be an understatement. There is in fact nothing that resembles conscious, sentient activity underpinning your indexation service - and following two telephone enquiries and one letter, we are rapidly becoming persuaded by Professor Richard Dawkins belief that there is, genuinely, no intelligent principle underpinning life in the universe.

Firstly, there is the not entirely insignificant issue of the data - with any relevant estimate of RPI inflation still sitting in negative territory, how on earth can you justify an inflationary increase of +1.8%?

Secondly, there is the issue of your customer services staff who apparently are incapable of understanding the concept of negative or positive inflationary figures. Do they not read the newspapers? Do you deliberately recruit people who are allergic to sums?

And thirdly, there is the mind-numbing procedure of simply repeatedly sending out the same letter (A, B & D). Do you train your people to genuinely believe that if they repeat the same flaky information time and time again, it will somehow become accurate? Is this intended to be a form of self-hypnosis, where if the same mantra is reiterated mindlessly, it will become the new Truth? Perhaps the Chancellor has been getting his inflationary figures seriously wrong, and only Scottish Provident have the inside track on reality.

Given that there is not one single thing to commend anything to do with your annual review of this policy, or for that matter your handling of our enquiry concerning the fictional inflation assumption, would it be possible for someone left within the building with a functional IQ to actually answer our questions?

Yours faithfully,