Insurance Angst
Sep. 18th, 2002 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hiddenmuseA couple of things happened at work that I need to get off my chest - especially if I plan to sleep at night.
No, I haven't done anything sinister. It's something a producer had done that's irked me to no end.
First, the producer comes up to me and tells me that with a particular client, any changes to be made to their policy have to be come down through them (the client) or him (the producer). Why? Because "they are very private people". Go ahead & roll your eyes, I'm pretty sure I didn't resist the temptation to do it myself. What does *that* have to do with anything? What am I supposed to do when I have a car dealership calling to change a vehicle for them? What about a bank calling about a mortgage that is closing the next day (as was the case today)? Should I sit around and wait until they call? Should I sit around and wait for you to come in, oh High and Mighty Producer, to get your go-ahead? Let me tell you, if I had to wait for our clients to call about these changes - we'd never hear about them. Or they'd procrastinate until the last second before telling us. I'm sure that the producer is going to go into the next meeting with the department heads and muckety-mucks and raise a ruckus about our policy to make those changes when they are called in, faxed in, or mailed in. That, or he's gonna light into Sherry about it, and put up a fuss with her (which she'd probably kick him out of her office, cos she's not the type to take that kind of bullshit). Whatever. I just think it's bollocks that we have to wait for the client to give us the go-ahead on something like that. I almost wanted to say to the producer, "Who the hell are they, anyways? To me, they're clients. We have their insurance. Doesn't matter if they're University students, corporate muckety-mucks or the Beautiful People. I'll treat them all equally, with the same decency and respect I'd hope to receive." (IMHO, with these particular clients, she's a bitch on the phone, and I've never talked to the husband, so I wouldn't be shocked if he's pussywhipped)
Then, no less than a half-hour later, I go into discuss a matter with the same producer on another client. I explain the situation, the circumstances currently preventing the desired changes ... and I am told to "just take 25% off the premium" and quote the client that. In the same breath, he says, "I don't really know the math". Just what I want to hear. I suggest the possibility of re-quoting the policy, with the desired changes, to get an approximate figure for the client, but the producer is more interested in "just take 25% off the premium and tell her to pay that". Right. We tried that already with Fireman's Fund, and that was a debacle I don't want to re-enact anytime soon. I'd rather have the client write two checks (despite her complaining against it) instead of having her bitching because the actual premium is more than what she was quoted. There's nothing worse than someone calling you to almost rip your head off because the savings you quoted weren't anywhere near the actual figures. Even our "within lying distance" approximations were off - we discovered that it was due to having incorrect information. (Lovely)
So, now the quandry I face is this:
(a) Am I wrong to say that I shouldn't have to babysit clients or mollycoddle a select very few? I can understand that with a few, we do treat them with kid gloves, because their business is what keeps us in business. I just don't like the whole "gatekeeper" mentality being applied to one particular client (and lord knows how many others).
(b) I know that I have the right to disagree with the producer on his suggestion, considering past experience and gut instinct. But, I almost feel like I'm a whistleblower or a snitch, going to my supervisor or the Office Administrator over things like this. Not that anyone is going to look down upon me for expressing that something makes me feel uncomfortable - just that I almost feel like I'm being a pest or something.
I don't expect anyone to have the answers - I just wanted to get those out of my mind so I can sleep tonight.
No, I haven't done anything sinister. It's something a producer had done that's irked me to no end.
First, the producer comes up to me and tells me that with a particular client, any changes to be made to their policy have to be come down through them (the client) or him (the producer). Why? Because "they are very private people". Go ahead & roll your eyes, I'm pretty sure I didn't resist the temptation to do it myself. What does *that* have to do with anything? What am I supposed to do when I have a car dealership calling to change a vehicle for them? What about a bank calling about a mortgage that is closing the next day (as was the case today)? Should I sit around and wait until they call? Should I sit around and wait for you to come in, oh High and Mighty Producer, to get your go-ahead? Let me tell you, if I had to wait for our clients to call about these changes - we'd never hear about them. Or they'd procrastinate until the last second before telling us. I'm sure that the producer is going to go into the next meeting with the department heads and muckety-mucks and raise a ruckus about our policy to make those changes when they are called in, faxed in, or mailed in. That, or he's gonna light into Sherry about it, and put up a fuss with her (which she'd probably kick him out of her office, cos she's not the type to take that kind of bullshit). Whatever. I just think it's bollocks that we have to wait for the client to give us the go-ahead on something like that. I almost wanted to say to the producer, "Who the hell are they, anyways? To me, they're clients. We have their insurance. Doesn't matter if they're University students, corporate muckety-mucks or the Beautiful People. I'll treat them all equally, with the same decency and respect I'd hope to receive." (IMHO, with these particular clients, she's a bitch on the phone, and I've never talked to the husband, so I wouldn't be shocked if he's pussywhipped)
Then, no less than a half-hour later, I go into discuss a matter with the same producer on another client. I explain the situation, the circumstances currently preventing the desired changes ... and I am told to "just take 25% off the premium" and quote the client that. In the same breath, he says, "I don't really know the math". Just what I want to hear. I suggest the possibility of re-quoting the policy, with the desired changes, to get an approximate figure for the client, but the producer is more interested in "just take 25% off the premium and tell her to pay that". Right. We tried that already with Fireman's Fund, and that was a debacle I don't want to re-enact anytime soon. I'd rather have the client write two checks (despite her complaining against it) instead of having her bitching because the actual premium is more than what she was quoted. There's nothing worse than someone calling you to almost rip your head off because the savings you quoted weren't anywhere near the actual figures. Even our "within lying distance" approximations were off - we discovered that it was due to having incorrect information. (Lovely)
So, now the quandry I face is this:
(a) Am I wrong to say that I shouldn't have to babysit clients or mollycoddle a select very few? I can understand that with a few, we do treat them with kid gloves, because their business is what keeps us in business. I just don't like the whole "gatekeeper" mentality being applied to one particular client (and lord knows how many others).
(b) I know that I have the right to disagree with the producer on his suggestion, considering past experience and gut instinct. But, I almost feel like I'm a whistleblower or a snitch, going to my supervisor or the Office Administrator over things like this. Not that anyone is going to look down upon me for expressing that something makes me feel uncomfortable - just that I almost feel like I'm being a pest or something.
I don't expect anyone to have the answers - I just wanted to get those out of my mind so I can sleep tonight.
