Few things can test your patience like dealing with an insurance company. One North Carolina man learned that the hard way over a claim regarding his mailbox. A hit-and-run driver plowed through his, and getting the at-fault driver’s insurance to pay turned into a runaround that no one should have to go through. What finally moved things along, he says, was a call to the local TV station that shouldn’t have had to be made in the first place.
The mailbox belonged to John Kurkowski, who lives in North Carolina. He says a driver crashed through it and, in his words, “killed it”. They then took off without stopping. Luckily, his neighbors got a good look at the car and even grabbed the tag number, which they passed along to the highway patrol. That gave Kurkowski enough to file a claim with the other driver’s insurance company.
At first, Kurkowski says, the claim seemed to go nowhere. He describes getting nothing but the runaround until he mentioned to the insurance company that he’d reached out to Action 9, the consumer segment at Charlotte’s WSOC-TV. Within about two days, he says, the whole tone changed in a curious way. The insurer suddenly agreed to cover the damage. In fact, it cut him a check for $800, enough to replace what he called a “pretty fancy mailbox”.
The insurance company told the TV station something decidedly different. According to the company, Erie, it started looking into the claim as soon as it was reported and kept Kurkowski in the loop the whole time. The company said that once it had the police report and the other details it needed, it sorted out who was responsible and paid the claim within a matter of days, which didn’t reflect exactly what had happened. In other words, the two sides don’t quite agree on how smoothly it went, even if the claim has now been processed.
What to Do If a Driver Wrecks Your Property
The TV station’s consumer expert laid out a few basics for anyone in the same spot. If the crash was the driver’s fault, their auto insurance should be the one paying for your fence, mailbox, or whatever got hit. If they don’t have insurance or weren’t at fault, you can usually turn to your own homeowners policy instead. Your insurer might then try to recover the money from the driver, a process known as subrogation.
There are a couple of catches when it comes to dealing with insurance. Filing too many claims, even ones that aren’t your fault, can make an insurer decide you’re a risk and drop you, so it’s not always worth it for something small. If a company simply won’t budge, suing is an option, though the cost and hassle may outweigh a few hundred dollars in damage. The smart move is usually to weigh how much you’re actually out before picking a fight.
Does Complaining Actually Help?
Kurkowski is convinced his claim got unstuck the moment he name-dropped the local news. Whether that’s exactly what happened is hard to prove, since Erie says it was already on the case. But the pattern is familiar to anyone who’s wrangled with a big company. A claim that’s been crawling along can suddenly speed up once someone with a platform starts asking questions.
His advice to everyone else was simple. Stay persistent, keep good records, and don’t let a company wear you down into giving up, which he figures is exactly what they’re counting on. For most people, the realistic version of calling the news is just being the squeaky wheel, politely but relentlessly. Either way, Kurkowski got his $800, and his mailbox lives to receive mail another day.