We have four vehicles on our Travelers family auto policy. The same policy that we have had for years.

I had a bit of insomnia, I was up in the middle of the night and thought I would be productive, so I made a premium payment on the Travelers website, using a credit card, just as I have been doing for years. The website was a bit wonky at the time, responses took forever. Payment was not acknowledged, so I thought the heck with it, I'll check back in the morning.

Morning came, Travelers website showed that payment had not been posted, very unusual as in the past it was always posted immediately. I checked the other end of the transaction, the online status of the credit card that I had used and sure enough, a payment of $475.00 to Travelers was showing.

I received the usual email from the credit card provider informing me that the charge had been made.

Credit card website shows payment made, Travelers website now shows one week "Past Due."

Travelers does not provide a way to contact the company directly. They want all communication to go through the agent.

I have a great agent. She really works the system for us, shopping the market for best policies at best prices for auto and homeowner, and if there is any sort of problem she is right on it like a bulldog.

She has been in constant contact with Travelers trying to get the situation cleared up. Travelers continues to promise a resolution "tomorrow." I have requested a written statement from Travelers, confirming that the policy is in force with no interruption of coverage. Travelers has not provided that.

I have to get their attention somehow. I'm not sure what my next step should be. Dispute the charge with the credit card issuer? The problem there is, this particular card does not provide email contact for customer service, nor does the website have a "chat" feature. The only contact methods they offer is telephone, which does not work for me because of my hearing disability, or regular mail, which will take forever.

The Florida state insurance commissioner does have an online complaint form. I suppose that I could give that a try.

Aaaargh!

Hit’em on social media. They have a Facebook page.

I can understand your loyalty to them given your long history. But.... Dump them.
I dont hold any loyalty to any insurance company. If they raise my rates or fail to provide good service, then its adios!
My ex was a State Farm office manager for 30 years and is now a Farmers agent.
She fully approves of my tactics.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:

I can understand your loyalty to them given your long history. But.... Dump them.
I dont hold any loyalty to any insurance company. If they raise my rates or fail to provide good service, then its adios!
My ex was a State Farm office manager for 30 years and is now a Farmers agent.
She fully approves of my tactics.

I agree with you 100%, but until my business is sold (do you want to buy a nice equipment rental business? I'll give you a heck of a deal!), until it is sold, I'm sort of stuck with Travelers. My delivery truck, a GMC 3500 chassis with a 12 foot cube, is on the policy, and my agent has checked and checked, and Travelers is the only company she could find that would give a decent rate for that. Everybody else is over $2,000.00 / year, Travelers premium for that truck is half of the others, just over a thousand. So I'm stuck with them unless I want to pay double the cost to insure the truck.

About loyalty -- I am loyal to the provider that gives me the best service at the lowest cost. My agent is not a front for a specific company, she is an independent agent, and she shops the market for me every year before renewal time, both for homeowner insurance and auto policy. She has my loyalty, not the company that is underwriting the policy.

And my agent is scary good with a handgun! She had never touched one, never held one, but wanted to try it, so I gave her the safety lesson, then we went to the range. Now this is the FIRST TIME she has ever fired a gun. From 15 to 20 feet, using my S&W model 65 revolver, she put all six rounds in a 1.5" group. Every time. She then wanted to try a semi-auto pistol, and she did just as well with me SIG P228. Now she wants to buy a gun for home defense; based on what she shot when we went to the club, she wants a concealed hammer DAO revolver, .357 magnum, with a 4" barrel, willing to compromise with a 3" barrel if that's all that we can find. I need to take her to look at a Kimber. I have a thread about this in the pistol section.

I can’t even get my credit card company (Synchrony Bank) on the phone. I get a recorded message that “the number you have dialed is not a working number”. Since the number I dialed is the one on the back of my card, I am kind of concerned.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:

I can’t even get my credit card company (Synchrony Bank) on the phone. I get a recorded message that “the number you have dialed is not a working number”. Since the number I dialed is the one on the back of my card, I am kind of concerned.

I do not have a physical Synchrony card, but that is the bank that handles Amazon charges for us, so we have an Amazon Store Card through Synchrony. I have never tried to call them, but their website has a "chat" function that works just fine for me.

Audible.com is an Amazon company. My wife had a long drive, Florida to Ohio, so she took the audible.com 30-day free trial (cancel any time within the first 30 days and you will not be charged for anything, per the free trial offer). The quality of the audio books that she chose was terrible. She cancelled within the first three days. Audible.com hit the Synchrony card for $14.95 for monthly renewal at the end of the 30 days even though she had canceled and she had their email acknowledging the cancelation.

I used chat on the website, got a very helpful service rep who not only refunded the charge, he offered to flag our account so that any further attempt by audible.com to charge us, would be declined.

I tried chat on the website. I was number 448 in the queue. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

I believe I would file a complaint with your insurance commissioner. Insurance companies used to be deathly afraid of hearing from them. Not sure about these days, but definitely worth a try.

So if I am correctly reading your post, the time frame has been about 7 days?

I would give your broker a little longer to get a resolution before you take any extra steps. The Corona situation has every insurance carrier in a tizzy and the workload is tremendous right now.

UPDATE: A week later, Travelers posted the payment, but with problems:

1. Payment posting date at Travelers was today, April 7. Actual payment date, as confirmed by credit card charge, was a week ago.
   
   
2. Premium due was $473.48. I rounded it up to $475.00. This is OK, per their website which states that you can pay any amount from the installment due up to the total balance. Any amount in between. I normally round up to some convenient number and this has never been a problem in the past.
   
   
3. Per the previous point, I OVERPAID the premium installment due, by $1.52. Repeat, OVERPAID! Travelers website shows past due (six days) amount of $5.00. No explanation is given for this.

Looks like they can't get anything right this month. As I said, I have been with this company for a while, never had any billing / payment problems before. I did not do anything different this month. My agent informs me that Travelers has one of the oldest websites in the business. I would think that if this is true, there should have been plenty of time to find software bugs and clean them up, and it should be stable.

Unless . . . maybe a "minor" update to deal with the virus situation was done in haste without sufficient testing before going live. The new "feature" is a hold on any late payment cancellations, so that policies now have a longer grace period prior to cancellation for non-payment or late payment. Maybe poking around in the payment area of the system introduced errors.

Sounds like a giant PITA. Regardless I would not lose any sleep over it as your fantastically priced policy is still in-force. Does their system stink, sure, but don't fret as you have zero control over their lousy system.

Also as a quick FYI, insurance policies have a 30-day grace period that starts the day after the due date. Hence if your premium was due on 4/1, even if you paid up to 4/30 they have to accept the payment and can't cancel your policy.

Also the grace period has been extended due to the Corona situation.

Make a copy of your credit card statement. Then hand it to your agent and have her deal with it. That's a job for the agent I believe at this point in time.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:

Make a copy of your credit card statement. Then hand it to your agent and have her deal with it. That's a job for the agent I believe at this point in time.

What a great idea! I wish that I had thought of it.