Peggy and I got up before 8:00 this morning which is pretty early for us retirees. We were taking showers, watching the news and Olympics and rustling up a breakfast when we got an incoming phone call from a number we could not identify. With a bit of apprehension, Peggy answered the call and found it was from National General Insurance Company, the carrier for the Good Sam Club’s RV insurance. She listened for a bit before handing the phone over to me.
Back in early June, 2016, we were visiting Monument Valley. It was over 100 degrees outside during the daylight hours and did not cool down very much at night. The second day we were there, the converter, which runs all things electric in our fifth wheel, sort of blew up. There was much smoke and apprehension but no fire. The failure of the converter eliminated the use of all the 110 volt stuff in our trailer like the microwave, fans, the TV and DVD player, all lighting except the on-board 12 volt lamps and, most importantly, the air conditioning.
I called and filed a claim with our insurance the night it occurred. Not a peep has been heard from the insurance company since that evening. This morning, an agent with a name like Gner or Kzap called us back and that is when Peggy handed the phone to me. I was not really prepared to be nice so when the agent started talking, I interrupted and asked if it was normal policy for National General to wait 10 weeks before responding to insureds’ claims. Gner/Kzap indicated that the claim had been lost in someone’s in box which was a poor selection of possible answers I was prepared to hear at the time. Stupidly, I then informed Gner/Kzap that National General’s treatment of policyholder claims is quite substandard and I was surprised they were still in business. I suggested their service was terrible, their adjusters were possibly mentally retarded, their recent ancestors may have been troglodytes and even relatively low premiums could not justify their miserable and rotten service. My language during these pithy descriptions of the company and its service was a bit more blunt than written here. I promptly hung up after regaling Gner/Kzap with all my observations without giving he/she/it a chance to get a word in edgewise.
Soon thereafter, Peggy brought up the fact that I should have allowed Gner/Kzap to at least tell me whether the bandit insurance company was going to cover my loss before rudely terminating the call. We called the company back and, after only about 15 minutes of waiting and entering numbers signifying what language I spoke and what department I wanted, I was connected to an actual human who told me that the company would not cover our claim so I did not feel so bad about giving Gner/Kzap both barrels during our short conversation. I do not regret even a bit of it although I wish I had been given more time to formulate an even more creative and harsh statement.
I’m not usually in the insurance company rating business but, if I were, I would give National General a grade of D minus for their service. This is the second time we have had to deal with their claims department and both times it took two months or more for them to respond. I am glad I did not need emergency road service since the same carrier also covers that aspect of our risk while travelling. We would still be broiling on the Arizona / Colorado border awaiting their tow truck.
Other than the phone fun this morning, we did the laundry. Peggy takes the lead on this task primarily because I am a pitiful clothes folder but I am good at packing the voluminous gobs of laundry into and out of the laundromat.
We had a bit of time left after our laundry fun so we took another trip around the peninsula in the Strait of Georgia where we are currently camped. We started with the same trip route we took a couple days ago. We went again to Semiahmoo Spit which divides the Strait from Drayton Harbor. The spit was bordered by wide expanses of bay bottom today because the tide was out a long way. We noted that there are no boats moored in most of Drayton Harbor because the bottom is lined with big, hull-ripping boulders that project up from the sandy bottom.
We then took another spin to Birch Bay where we cruised a few days ago. Peggy had me pull over in town for a reward which, in this case, was ice cream and a sizable chocolate and peanut butter cup that were very tasty. There are many distinctive and pretty beachfront homes there and most of them are pretty small although there are also some big McMansions above Birch Bay State Park. A quick internet search indicated that the tiny houses go for about $300,000 and up which would give them a per foot cost of about $750. We won’t be buying here although it would be nice because this part of the world is very pretty. The adjacent state park has a shady, serene campground in the cedar forest just above the beach. There are maybe 120 campsites here and some are big enough to take a fifth wheel trailer the size of ours although there are no hookups of any sort. Water is available in the campground but you will need some kind of container to take it back to your campsite. No electrical or sewer was spotted.
We ended up our day by returning to our trailer at Birch Bay TT and had a rough afternoon reading and sipping craft beer in our chaise lounges in the shade. It was brutal.
We shot a few pix along the way and you can see them if you click here