I work as an insurance agent in British Columbia. In British Columbia, you have to go through the government to get car insurance. However, I work at an agency, so we’re basically a middleman; I don’t actually work for the government.

A guy walks in and tosses his papers on the counter.

Customer: “Three months [insurance].”

Strike one for tossing papers disrespectfully.

I begin to do my job, which unfortunately involves lots of simple questions I legally have to ask. These involve, “Are you driving it the most?” and going through coverages. Typically, I apologize for doing it because I know it’s annoying, but I try to be as fast and polite as possible.

I begin to ask my questions.

Me: “Are you still the principal operator?”

Customer: “Yep.”

Me: “Still driving it—”

Customer: “Yup.”

Me: “—driving it the most?”

Customer: “Yup.”

Me: “And are you—”

Customer: “Yap!“

Strike two. I say f*** it and just cut to the chase.

Me: “Sir, it is $198 to renew your insurance.”

This is fairly cheap for three months.

Customer: “What?! How much was it last time?”

I look at the papers.

Me: “Sir, your insurance went up eight dollars.”

I don’t think this is a big deal, but he starts losing his s***, wondering why the insurance corporation of British Columbia is personally victimizing him by charging eight dollars more. I explain that their rates increased a few months ago, and it affected everybody. That doesn’t cut it though; he is furious.

I gather his documents and ask him to sign, and he rips them from my hands.

Customer: “Which one of the documents goes to ICBC?”

That means the government.

Me: “None of them do; they stay in our office.”

He ignored me and began to write something on our copy of the paperwork, and at that point, I’d just had it with the guy. He stormed out as I sarcastically wished him a fantastic day.

I immediately read what he wrote: “RIP OFF!” in all caps across the page.

I felt better after reading his comments. At least he thought he was making a difference anyhoo.

I was a project manager, and my not-so-bright boss dumped a do-nothing and know-nothing employee onto my team. Why, I have no clue, but despite my objections, I was stuck with him. He had no idea what our project was even about, but I tried to find something important for him to do — like documenting our processes and procedures — that wouldn’t cause our project to fail. But he failed at that simple task, too. 

Then came annual evaluations for all members of my team. After writing them, I met with my boss for review and approval. My recommendation, complete with a list of all the screw-ups and mistakes this jerk had made, was to put him on probation for ninety days, and if he didn’t improve, he was to be let go. And he would receive no raise that year.  

Instead of my boss accepting my recommendation for this guy, he told me to promote him to a Senior Analyst position! I could not justify that, and I told my boss so.

Boss: “Do it, or you might be reporting to that guy.”

I got the drift and somehow managed to write a half-decent reason for promoting this guy.

But, I did two things: along with my promotion request, I sent all communications explaining to my boss why I didn’t want to promote him and his responses to “do it”. And in the minutia of the request for promotion, I wrote, “[Employee] is being promoted only because I was told to do it. He is not worthy of this promotion.” My boss never saw or read the negative comments; he just signed off on it, and this guy was promoted.

Thankfully, our project was over in a couple of months and my staff was reassigned, as was I, to other projects. [Employee] was assigned to a different project manager that reported to a different boss. His new project manager quickly learned just how bad this employee was and read his employee file, including the “review” I had written.  

The project manager and his boss came to talk to me about it, and I told them the entire story, complete with copies of the emails between my boss and me, where I constantly wrote and provided examples that this employee was incompetent and did not deserve a promotion, and the responses telling me to “do it”.

Then, the three of us went to the Vice President of the division and explained what happened. [Employee] and my boss were asked to resign or be fired. They resigned.

Good riddance.

I work for an independent insurance agency. Before I became involved in this situation, we received a call from someone who had six rental homes he needed insured. We were told all six properties had current tenants with signed leases.

There are different types of home policies: policies for single-family homes, condos/townhomes, rental properties for short-term and long-term (dwelling fire/landlord), builders’ risk (homes undergoing renovation or construction), vacant homes, etc.

The policies that assume a higher risk cost more. As the client confirmed the properties were all occupied by tenants, we wrote six landlord policies for him with the same carrier.

About three months later, the client called us in a panic. One of the homes burned down completely and the carrier denied the claim. It took a while to figure out what happened as the client was screaming at us and the carrier and threatening to sue everyone.

The problem? The home was vacant and did not have a tenant.

The client tried to throw us under the bus and claim that we knew the home was vacant. Nope, and our calls are recorded. The agent was able to pull the call with the client where the client assured him there was a current tenant living in the home. The agent even pointed out that homes that are vacant have to be written as a different type of policy.

We were also able to provide the signed applications where there’s literally a section to initial where you confirm the property is not vacant and that you understand that lying could cause a claim to be denied. Most carriers do not require a copy of the signed lease for these types of policies and rely on their contract to handle any issues like this.

At the end of the day, the insured client got nothing. He is still making payments on the house that burned down. Surprisingly, he wanted to remain our client with his five remaining properties, though we did have to move him. This time, even though the new carrier didn’t ask for it, we told him that he had to provide copies of each lease and photos of each home showing personal belongings in the home.

The agent told him that if he lies about anything else, we will be firing him as a client, and he will have to get insurance elsewhere at his next renewal.

The cost difference between a landlord policy and a vacant home policy for that house? Less than $1,000 a year. The cost of the house that burned down? $248,000.

I have a friend who gets a thick Southern drawl when she’s irritated. One day, she gets a robocall.

Friend: “Hello?”

Caller: “This is for anyone who needs additional life insurance.”

Friend: *With a Southern accent* “I know Jesus. I think I got life insurance and afterlife insurance.”

The caller burst out laughing, and my friend promptly panicked and hung up when she realized that an actual human had called her instead of a robot. At least the call center employee enjoyed it!

My friend told me of this conversation they had with their insurance provider.

Provider: “…and you’ll want to get [Plan] to make sure your insurance covers acts of God.”

Friend: “I don’t believe in God.”

Provider: “All the more reason to make sure you don’t have to shell out because He did something to you.”

My friend got the suggested plan.