My love affair with an insurance company

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a new romantic relationship, so long that when I hear my single friends talking, it’s like a whole new world, a land with a different language of ghosting and negging and other terms that didn’t even exist when I got married, let alone fell in love.

I felt like I just didn’t understand that world at all. Until very recently.

While I’m loathe to compare my experience with a big insurance company to a romantic relationship, I’ve certainly developed a better understanding of modern dating terms and some of the angst that accompanies them.

The relationship with my insurance company began years ago when they managed to seduce me with low premiums, efficient service and continual advertising. Our relationship was easy, they charged me annual premiums and I paid them. We didn’t even have to talk, I think it was this lack of interaction that helped us get along so well.

But then I brought a child into the relationship. I realise this is always a dangerous point in a relationship but I compensated by paying exorbitant fees to the insurer so they would love (cover) my P plate driver.

The child tested the relationship a couple of times by driving into kerbs and occasionally “nudging” other cars. But paying excess payments seemed to satisfy the insurer and the relationship continued to thrive. If by thrive you mean I paid them extra and they fulfilled their side of the bargain by ensuring the car was repaired.

And then one fateful Sunday our relationship hit a point at which everything we had been keeping below the surface began to bubble up. This was at the same time as my son hit another car and snapped the steering column on his car. The car had to be towed away and I think this may have snapped my relationship with the insurer.

I contacted them online and they told me they would get back to me in 48 hours.

Four days later I realised I was being ghosted. I called them again. They told me they hadn’t been able to get hold of the tow truck company. I remembered a friend telling me about the time she met a guy on Tinder and he hadn’t got back to her because his wifi was down.

I continued to be ghosted. I had paid my premiums I wanted some love in return; I wasn’t too proud to contact them again. And again. But it started to make me feel very uncomfortable while they repeatedly told me how lucky I was to be with them as I held on the phone for hours. I didn’t feel lucky. I felt negged.

Every time I spoke to them they told me they were sorry it was taking so long but it wasn’t their fault. It was the repairer or the tow truck company. It was even my fault. It was never their fault. So this is how gas lighting feels, I thought.

They kept promising to call me back. They never did. I was ghosted.

I started to feel frustrated. Angry even. Worst of all I felt completely hamstrung. Every time I called them they talked to me from far across the ocean, it was like they had run away. There was no way to get through to them.

Eventually 10 days after my claim was submitted and I had never heard a thing about where the car was, I broke down. Like my son’s car, I was smashed.

I phoned and after holding for 49 minutes while listening to them tell me how lucky I was, I got through to a supervisor. And by supervisor I mean someone educated in the art of gas lighting. He pretended to listen to me while condescendingly telling me about the terms and conditions of my policy.

He told me that I could register a complaint and it would take 10–15 business days for them to get to it. I cried. I don’t know where my son’s car is and I feel as abandoned as the car. The supervisor softened a little bit when I cried. He said someone would call me back that afternoon.

It’s three days later and I know I’ve been ghosted again. I’m trapped in a loveless relationship with AAMI and the last thing I feel is lucky.

Modern relationships are shit. Insurance companies are as bad.