Temporary Insurance, Permanent Headache

I had just lost my job. That part actually isn't so bad, truthfully; I hated that stupid job anyway. What was really bothering me was that my girlfriend was now threatening to leave me. My head was not in the right place when I was making decisions on what luxuries and amenities (and essentials) to cut back.

I did away with cable TV, my high speed Internet service, my daily vanilla soy half caf latte, degraded my mobile phone service plan, cancelled a couple of Vegas trips with the guys, and made sure to turn off all of the lights, water, and air conditioning as SOON as I left the room... EVERY time. This did help, but not enough. I needed to cut back more until I could find a new job.

Assuming, I thought correctly, that the part of my budget geared towards pleasing my girlfriend was in no way, shape, or form under consideration for the chopping block, I then went to the next bill in my huge stack of outflowing monies - my car insurance payment.

Now if I had been thinking logically, I would have deduced that I needed to keep my car in pristine shape, because that was my only hope of securing appointments and eventually employment on any continual basis. Not only appointments, but think how hard a 30 mile daily commute would be without a car. Oh mind you, I came in third in my elementary school's annual cross country meet one year. I know that I could hoof it 2-3 days a week, just not every day, you understand. I had no backup on this, as I don't live with my girlfriend, and truthfully, my pumpkin is just not the type of girlfriend to drive me to work every day. Or any day. That's an entirely different story. (I'd love it if someone else started writing my story from now on, actually.)

However, in my weakened mental state, I decided that switching my car insurance from my reputable yet quite expensive current company served my best interests at the time. I wasted no time in promptly not paying them that month, and they wasted even less in dropping me from their rolls, after the couple of cursory phone calls from a representative that sounded like he really didn't care what the hell I did. Anyway, I switched my insurance to the first fly by night company that I saw advertised on my now quite limited television viewing options. I might not have done that even, but in my state, if you don't have at least swindler's insurance, they take your driver's license from you as well. They then ever so politely escort you to jail.

I then proceeded to, in my genius, become involved in the worst automobile accident of my underachieving life.

It wasn't my fault, but that didn't matter. My car was totaled and I needed a replacement immediately. Every day without a car was a day that I missed appointments, potential employment, and the end of my slowly dying relationship. So I call up my brand new fly by night insurance company, after 15 minutes managed to get someone on the phone, then proceeded to talk his ear off for another 15 about how they needed to get my rental car to me post haste and set me up with the closest garage on their list of preferred mechanics.

It took another 15 minutes before I realized that this conversation was never going to go anywhere. I had been so busy talking the guy's ear off that it took me that long to note that he hadn't said one word back. I thought he was just listening, you know, exercising good customer service, until I heard him talk back to me in Spanish. He actually wasn't talking to me; he was talking to someone beside him. Laughing, really. It took another 15 minutes for me to hang up in frustration.

After asking a few friends about similar experiences, I found out that these types of temporary insurance companies were only around to satisfy the legal requirement of having insurance. Any customer who actually calls up requesting service gets similar treatment, and it's to be expected.

But wait! No one thought of the X factor in the equation - the paperwork. It spelled out the exact terms of the agreement and was admissible in court! I excitedly began wading through my mountains and oceans of jumbled papers until I realized that I had thrown the insurance paperwork out with the pizza box last week.

To be barely literate con men, these temporary insurance guys were pretty smart. If not businessmen, at least psychologists. They played me like a fiddle.

The good news? I'll be using this story as my profile summary on the online dating sites. You guessed it, ladies: I'm single. Who wants a piece?

copyright Paolo Vale 2006