Dear GEICO,
I’m writing to explain how, over the course of your handling of a single claim, you went from being a company I would definitely recommend to others to one which I would under no circumstances recommend. If you actually care about winning and keeping customers, you might want to pay attention.
One of your customers broad-sided my car in November. Because they were clearly at fault, I opted to deal directly with you rather than going through my insurance company, so I wouldn’t have to deal with subrogation, getting my deductible reimbursed, getting my replacement rental car reimbursed, etc.
The first time I called you, your representative referred me to your web site, informed me that I could handle most aspects of the claim there, and told me how to log in.
I was initially quite impressed with this site. It has a modern user experience and quite a lot of functionality. However, there are a few issues you should change or fix, two of which are significant:
- It prompts for SMS multifactor authentication at every login, rather than remembering authenticated devices and not prompting again there.
- Although the site allows the user to send you messages through it, once a message is sent there’s no trace of it on the site, i.e., the user cannot see the messages they’ve previously sent or your responses to them.
At this point I’d say you were a 4/5 in my eyes; you lost a star because of these two issues with your site. Still, 4/5 is plenty good for me to be willing to recommend you in the future.
On January 9, the repairs to my car were finally (mostly) complete and I got the car back. I submitted the receipt for the rental to you through your web site that day and sent you a message asking for reimbursement. You sent a response indicating that it was being routed to my claims adjuster for approval and reimbursement.
About a week later, when I’d heard nothing back and hadn’t received a check, I sent you a message through your site asking what was going on and reiterating my request for reimbursement. You did not respond. You lost another star (down to 3/5) for not reimbursing me promptly and for not responding to this message.
On February 1, I still hadn’t heard anything more from you or received my reimbursement, so I sent another message to you through your site. Again, no one responded. You lost another star (down to 2/5) for not responding to this message.
Today, February 6, I called you on the phone and asked what was doing on. I was put on hold for several minutes, after which the agent told me that the reimbursement was being routed to the head of the department for approval by the end of the day, at which point I would receive a text message asking how I wanted to be reimbursed.
At this point the call went catastrophically wrong:
- Your agent did not apologize for the delay or offer any explanation for what caused it.
- When I expressed my dissatisfaction with the delay and lack of communication and asked the agent to pass on that feedback, he once again did not apologize, instead claiming, “Well, this is definitely how our process works and it’s not going to change” (!!).
- When I pointed out to him that I had not been informed at any point that I had to call to get the reimbursement approved, and that indeed I was told in response to my initial submission of the receipt that it was being handled without the necessity of a phone call, he again failed to apologize or to acknowledge that if, indeed, a phone call was required (which, frankly, I doubt; I think he was just lying), I should have been told that.
- He claimed, “If you had been reimbursed when you wanted to be, it might have gone to the wrong person or the wrong address,” which is quite simply a lie. At that point you already had all of the information you needed to send the reimbursement to me, as evidenced by the fact that he did not ask me for any additional information on this phone call.
I assume by now it is clear why my rating of GEICO has descended to 0/5. If I could give you negative stars, I would.
To your credit, I did get my reimbursement by the end of the day, albeit nearly a month later than I should have.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
