Complaint Review: Geico Auto Insurance - Select State/Province

My Geico Auto Insurance Experience:

 I switched to Geico in early 2013 as I believed my previous quality insurance carrier had raised its rates.  Geico with its catchy advertising and lower rates was unfortunately at the time attractive to me.  I enrolled with Geico with an alleged quality auto insurance package, which was stated to be a good policy that included even roadside assistance.  This led me to believe that not only did I have what I’d had with my prior company, Progressive, but even more benefits at $61.00 per month lower cost.

 Unfortunately, due to heavy rain and apparently oil slicked roads my vehicle hydroplaned on August/26/2013.  Despite the reality that I was well over a long car length away (i.e. not a compact car length away)  from the large pick-up truck in front of me on the night of August/26/2013 at approximately 7:30PM, my vehicle slid and did not respond to my efforts to apply the brakes.   It appeared that my vehicle, a Hyundai Accent, did not even slow down no matter how I tried to feather, pump or in the end apply hard pressure to the brake pedal.  My vehicle slammed into the rear bumper of the truck in front of me. 

 Thankfully, the very nice man driving the truck was not injured.  The truck was also not damaged; however, my compact car suffered a crushed in front end and seemed, on the spot, to be obviously totaled.  

The nightmare with Geico Auto Insurance began here:

1) The gentleman drove his truck into the nearest parking lot off of the main road where the accident occurred.

2) I followed him into the parking lot so that he and I could exchange insurance information.

3) Both the gentleman and I had Geico Auto Insurance.

4) As I did not have my cellular phone at the time the gentleman used his cell phone to contact Geico to report the accident.

5) It seems the Geico phone agent was able to locate his policy promptly and he reported the incidents of the accident.

6) After he was finished it was my turn.  The gentleman handed his phone to me to speak to Geico.

7) I recently signed up with Geico so I did not have my insurance card or information with me.

8) Thus I gave my identifying information, my social security number, to the Geico agent.  The agent initially could not link my information to anyone with a Geico policy and this was the first tell tale crystal clear indicator of what was to come.  It appeared that I had just experienced a major car accident, totaled my car, believed I had insurance, yet likely did not have auto insurance in reality.

9) This brings me to Geico’s very first mess-up, which I didn’t view as the clue it actually was.  When I first purchased my Geico policy/enrollment and gave Geico my card number to pay, I was told by the agent that took my payment the payment went through fine.  However, the very next day I began to receive automated phone message calls from Geico stating my card had been declined and that I needed to pay.

10) It made no sense to me that my card had declined payment.  Thus I called Geico and spoke to a customer service agent about the issue.  Through this call it was discovered that the previous customer service agent had noted the expiration date on my card incorrectly.  When I provided the corrected expiration date the payment went through with no problem – or so I thought until the night of August/26/2013 when the agent could not find any policy under my information.  Panic set in at this point.  It is illegal to drive with no insurance and I’d just had a major accident.

11) It took perhaps 15 minutes or so and finally the Geico phone agent found a policy under my information, including my social security number.  However, that policy, the agent told me, already had an accident claim on it and she was not referring to the accident that had just happened on this night of August/26/2013!  She was talking about a previous accident claim. 

12) My state of panic skyrocketed as I had NOT had or reported a previous accident to Geico. 

13) I informed the Geico phone agent that there had to be a mistake because there was no prior accident.  She proceed to continue to try to locate my policy.  If I recall correctly she actually had to then place me on hold to contact another department within Geico to try to find my policy where no other prior accident claims had been reported to Geico.

14) Luckily, maybe or maybe it didn’t even matter, Geico finally did find my insurance policy – my policy with no prior accident claim on it.

15) By this point the gentleman I had hydroplaned into had determined that there really wasn’t any damage to his truck and he was not going to ask for any repairs or report any damages to himself or his vehicle. 

16) The accident had occurred about a half hour before I was finished speaking with the Geico phone agent.

17) The slick road, by the way, also caused the gentleman’s girlfriend, who was driving an SUV behind me to get rear ended when I hydroplaned into her boyfriend’s car.  However, she likely did not rear end me after her vehicle was struck.  This is a small detail somewhat off the topic of the treatment I have received from Geico.

18) After we were finished reporting the incident to Geico I was able to leave and drive my seemingly totaled car the remaining four or so miles to my destination for the night.

19) During this juncture the head lights on my car were not working and there was something burning and smoking out from under my vehicle’s hood.

20) My car drove strangely the remaining miles I had to go and it appeared very obvious to me that my car was likely very much totaled and dangerous to drive.  This was Monday night.  My days off of work are Tuesday and Wednesday.  I would need a car to drive ASAP as I had a variety of projects to complete as well as work Thursday morning.  Since I was led to believe I had a good policy with roadside assistance (bells and whistles) when I signed up with Geico it seemed logical to believe I could get assistance and a rental car if need be.

21) My car made it to my destination on Monday night.  Somehow after I got there the head lights came back on with no repair.  Also the burning under the hood, the smoke clearly rising as something was on fire under the hood, had stopped on its own.  This is really fantastic news, greater news that I realized at the time, because I was and currently remain a Geico auto insurance company.  I have come to learn that as a Geico customer it is truly necessary to have a self-healing car!!

22) My Geico horror story had just begun.  I was still to learn exactly how serious of a mistake I had made by switching to Geico.

23) The next morning the Hell Geico style continued and kicked into high ever increasing gear.  I spent Tuesday morning, frightened to drive my car, but determined to see what I could do about my situation outside of Geico as I was already beginning to get a clue, driving my vehicle to my preferred dealership to see if the dealership could help me into another car.   The dealership looked at my vehicle and believed my vehicle was totaled.  I was told to go through Geico to have them inspect the vehicle and take care of this portion of the situation.  I called Geico from the dealership and the middle portion of the Geico Hell Ride began.

24) After speaking to Geico from the dealership and agreeing to bring my vehicle to a residential location allegedly closer to the shop (i.e. a shop reportedly about 6 or 7 miles from the dealership) Geico wanted to have the vehicle assessed at I left the dealership and drove to this variant residential location. 

25) At approximately 12:30 or 1:00 in the afternoon, once at this location I called Geico from my spouse’s phone and the particulars of my policy, case and situation began to come into focus.  I did not have rental car coverage and Geico would do nothing to change this.  Geico also did not care about the mistakes its company had made up to this point.  It was arranged that a tow truck would come and pick up my car.

26) To have my car towed the Geico agent called the tow truck company informing me that all I need to do was give verbal authorization to tow my car over the phone.  We waited until the tow company operation came onto the phone and when she did she began to state I needed to give tow authorization via fax or Internet signature.  I was stunned and I stated to my spouse:  “Rule number three when dealing with Geico, buy a fax machine and have it ready in care anything happens.” 

27) My spouse got on the phone and began a long heated argument with the Geico rep.  After listening to the sickening argument for a time I was finally able to leave the room and lay down in a different room to wait for some conclusion.  I have major neck and upper back injuries from the accident as well.  I was in pain and exhausted.

28) At some point I was able to give authorization for the tow via the phone and it was stated that the tow truck was coming to get my car.  The argument with the Geico rep continued after this while I again tried to rest in another room.

29) The hours crawled by with no rental car, no transportation of any kind, summer weather over 110 degrees, etc.  I happen to suffer from multiple medical issues including a genetic illness that causes autoimmune disease, Chrones symptoms, severe arthritis, compromised immune system, etc.  I also have two types of heart arrhythmia.  Etc.  The hours crawled by and the tow truck never came.

30) Finally I told my spouse I needed to call Geico again to find out when the tow truck was coming to get my car because it should have been there a long time ago.  After all I was told this shop was only perhaps 6 or 7 or so miles away from the dealership in a city much closer to where I was at now than when I was at the dealership.  Thus that shop would logically be maybe 2 or 3 miles from my current location. 

31) My spouse indicated I didn’t need to call Geico as the tow truck would come – surely, soon.

32) I had a bad feeling about the no-show tow truck though and I insisted on calling Geico to ask about why the tow truck had not yet appeared.  I made that call to Geico and discovered that though I had given authorization via a three-way phone call and everything of that nature, something had gone wrong on Geico’s end.  The tow was never fully finalized in that ordering process so the tow truck would never have come if I had not made this call.  Yet another mess-up by Geico.

33) It was now about 3:30 or 4:00PM and Geico re-ordered or went through with all the correct moves to get the tow truck out. 

34) The tow truck finally arrived close to an hour after the second ordering of the tow.  I had actually gotten in my car and taken a short residential area slow drive at this point to try to relieve some of my stress.  I saw the tow truck as I was returning to the house and flag the driver down to go ahead and take my car to be assessed.

35) Geico still refused to give me a rental car. 

36) My car arrived at the shop for Geico to assess it at around 5:00PM or after that.  As it turned out that shop that was allegedly so close seems to not have been close at all.  That shop was allegedly now over a 30 minute plus drive away one way. The techs all left at 5:00PM.  I was informed that Chris through Geico may be able to get to my car on Wednesday, but likely on Thursday sometime.  I had to be back at work on Thursday. 

37) At this point it was crystal clear to me that Geico had misrepresented the policy I was purchasing when I signed up.  Geico had messed up with my first payment telling me it was confirmed and had gone through when it had not as Geico got my card’s expiration date wrong.  Nonetheless, Geico gave me a payment confirmation number and told me the card had been good and the payment was made when it was not.  I repeated the payment the next day when I found out it did not really go through as I’d been told.  Then when a severe accident occurred Geico could not locate my policy, then located the wrong policy, then finally found my policy, then I learned how badly I had been shafted in what Geico had sold me.  After this Geico messed-up on ordering the tow, then they failed to do anything to make any of their mistakes right, etc.  Now as the car did not get into the Geico shop, which was also not located in the distance Geico had stated, on Tuesday day time it looked like I would not have a broken car to drive or a rental car to drive and I would miss work on Thursday, etc.

38) At this point I was horrified as it was obvious to me that the real condition of my car was not a relevant factor. 

39) I understood that if I was lucky Geico would eventually declare my car totaled and cut me a low ball check so that at least I could suck up my losses and the bad treatment by Geico and try to buy another car, which would at least me safe to drive.

40) I also understood that the likelihood of Geico doing anything right by me as a customer was at about zero percent.  I had never been treated this horribly by any company before. 

41) It took a lot of ugliness and fighting on the phone to get my car assessed by Geico on Wednesday.  As I predicted at this point Geico did not declare my car totaled while I am certain it is totaled.

42) Geico never gave me a rental car.  Geico never did anything whatsoever to make its mistakes right.  Geico also refused to upgrade my policy so that I could have a rental car and pay a higher insurance rate for this inclusion starting in September 2013.  Geico expects me to pay a $1,000 deductable to have a car I believe to be totaled with a bent frame fixed (body shop work so it does not look like what it is).  Why would I pay $1000 to Geico to have them surface fix a car with what I posit to have a bent frame?? Body shop work won’t make this car safe to drive. Etc.

43) It took more ugliness on the phone to get Geico to order the tow truck to bring my ruined car back to the place where we’d had them pick it up.   This shop was no where near close like Geico had stated it was on Tuesday – so with no rental car, etc. I was not able to go to the shop to retrieve my destroyed car. 

44) Moreover, it appears that the first request for the tow truck to return my car was messed up just like the first attempt at ordering the tow to the shop on Tuesday afternoon.  It took a second run at calling Geico and the shop to re-order the tow to get my car back. 

45) It took that tow service an hour or so to get my car back to me.  And when the tow truck came and dropped off my car the Geico customer service experience continued yet more.

46) There was a ring of the door bell.  I got up and scurried quickly, at a trot,  to the garage to open up the garage door and accept my damaged car back after all of this Geico customer service Hell.  Well, there was my car, dumped off in the driveway, but the tow truck driver was literally driving away already!

47) I had to run after the tow truck to try to flag it down to get my car keys.  I now had my ruined car stuck in the driveway.  It was blocking the entrance to the garage.  There were no car keys! I could not find my car keys! However, when I ran after that tow truck it just kept on driving away.

48) I was running down the street in hopes of cutting the tow truck off at the turn to the residential street when a lady who I did not know was backing out of her driveway.  In desperation I flagged her down and begged her to race after this tow truck that was out of sight, but hopefully did not get far away yet.  She agreed to help me and sped away in the direction I’d pointed I thought the tow truck had gone.

49) The nice lady managed to catch up with the tow truck in the end.  However, before I knew this, while she had been trying to find the tow truck I had returned to my car and had been frantically digging in the door side compartments, the visor area, the glove box, the floor areas in front of the front seats, the cubby up by the dome light for garage door openers with no luck in finding my car key.  I had even searched the mail box of the house thinking maybe the tow truck driver dropped the car key in there, but there was no key anywhere and no note telling me where to find a key. 

50) Since the nice lady did eventually manage to catch the tow truck driver in her car she drove back and I flagged her down, desperate in the driveway, to see if she’d found the tow truck and had hopefully gotten my car key.  She told me she had gotten to the tow truck and my keys were stated to be under the front seat.  She waited in her car while I looked.  Thank God my key was indeed under the driver’s seat.  I showed the nice lady, thanked her and she left.

This is my Geico Auto Insurance experience so far.  I am certain Geico is not finished treating me like garbage.  I will be driving an unsafe car an hour one way to work Thursday morning and Thursday night when I leave work at 7:00PM.  Maybe my headlights will work and maybe they won’t.  I have no idea what other serious safety concerns exist with my car considering the bent frame and whatnot which I believe exist in this case.  However, I will be on the roadways with this car.  Thank Geico.  Moreover, anyone who has Geico at this time as well as anyone considering Geico my experience could easily happen to you.  The wonderful insurance company I had before is Progressive.  I highly recommend Progressive Auto Insurance to anyone!! I would love to go back to Progressive myself, except Geico has found an interesting way to keep me as a customer – it has abused me and now left me with this dangerous wrecked car, not worth $1,000 deductable to fix a car I posit it totaled.  If I find my car is not totaled any time in the future I will get it fixed out of pocket and go back to Progressive.  Paying any money whatsoever for Geico to assist in repairing my car, after the abuse I have suffered from Geico, would be insane. 

This is my personal Geico story.  I will update as Geico abuses me further, which I fully believe is what will soon happen. 

P.S.

There is no note or other statement in my vehicle to tell me what the assessor through Geico did find wrong with my car either.  My car was simply literally dumped off in the driveway, blocking the entrance to the garage so no one could use the garage, with no note or communication on how to find the car key and the tow truck driver just drove away like this.  I chased the tow truck a ways down the street bare foot on pavement hot enough to blister my feet to no avail.  Geico literally expects me to pay them $1,000 deductable to fix the car at this time despite the reality it is likely totaled and despite their treatment.  Had a complete stranger not agreed to be kind enough as to chase the tow truck and find out where my key was my car would have remained stranded in the drive way blocking the entrance to that garage until I maybe found that key.  This is how Geico treats its customers.

P.P.S.

At least one customer service rep seemed to laugh at me last night, August/27/2013, while I complained on the phone about how horrible the customer serrvice was with Geico!!!