B&B - no Imperative

On Saturday I received this letter from my insurance broker, Brown & Brown of Delaware. Brown & Brown bought the business from Chase Insurance and fronts for AIG who provides the insurance.

You would think if an insurance carrier is going to drop a client, and a broker feels "It is imperative that the carrier receives your payment so that your coverage is not in jeopardy" that they would've called to find out what happened to the payment.

In my case, it should've been a direct debit but who knows what happened.

What I do know is that my broker, Brown & Brown, sent a letter on July 9th stating that payment needed to be received by July 11th. The letter arrived on July 12th.

What I do know is that my broker never called on the 9th when they sent and signed the letter. They've got my home number and cell phone. Both phones have voicemail. If they had reached me on the 9th, I could have FedEx'd the payment in time to arrive on the 11th.

What I do know is that in a few minutes I had an online quote from GEICO that was significantly less than Brown & Brown. I followed it up with a call to GEICO to answer some questions and in less than an hour I had insurance forms in my email.

What I do now know is that GEICO accepted a credit card for the payment (points!) and that it is now on recurring payment so that my card will be automatically billed on renewal.

The contrast between Brown & Brown and GEICO is striking. GEICO now has a new fan and loyal customer.

Brown & Brown could take some lessons on customer experience and may need to update it's website boast from "At Brown & Brown, we know that we must be as agile as the cheetah in order to thrive in the competitive insurance environment" to "At Brown & Brown, we know that as Ostriches with our heads in the sand our customer is on his own in this environment".