Over the last year, Slobo has been changing our insurance company from State Farm to Geico. This all started over 4 years ago when we traded in our Van for the GMC Envoy. We had just switched homeowner’s insurance. Actually, the house I owned, I sold and the house he bought, he decided not to go with State Farm. I had been with them since I first started driving at 19 and just never switched or checked into any cheaper rates, Cars – homes were all a package deal.

When he bought the Envoy, we found out after the fact, State Farm had cancelled the car insurance on the day he called them – not the day he told them to make the switch with the new Envoy. So, we had been driving around for about 4 weeks without knowing we were uninsured, until one day he gets a letter in the mail saying “If you ever want to consider us for your insurance needs, please give us a call.” He did. Found out what they had done. And I don’t think they asked him to call them again.

State Farm hasn’t responded too well to having competition. The “Oh, you must have told her to cancel – because we don’t just do that”, has become “In order to cancel your homeowner’s policy – you must fax us a letter with your signature”. That was after they were telling him he had to drive the 120 miles round trip to come to them in order to cancel. He told her we don’t have any fax machines , she says “Hold on, I’ll have to talk to Gene Massey, your agent.”, who promptly gets on the phone, in a gruff voice, tells him he’ll have to come in and switches the phone back to her. I finally had enough listening to him try to make a point and just said loud enough for her to hear – hasn’t anyone here heard of a letter? Can’t you just mail a letter with your signature? “Sir, that will be just fine. – Click”.

Sheesh. At least it was easier than finding the fax machine in the garage boxes that contained all the old WooHoo.com equipment – you know those antique office automation equipement boxes containing big clunky calculators, fax machines, corded telephones, dictaphone machine and cassette tape players?

Yes, son, in my day they used an instrument called a p-e-n and t-y-p-i-n-g paper. Why we even had to lick our stamps (no son, they didn’t have a pocahontas sticker then – they were all one color) – and envelopes – isn’t that disgusting? And the conservationists used to get so mad when we balled up the paper because we messed up – cringing at the thought of killing all those trees. See, if we had saved those trees, we wouldn’t have the pollution problem now from getting in the car and making silly 120 mile drives because people are being stupid. So, remember son, don’t be stupid – keep it simple.

Speaking of fax machines, pmctelecom has an excellent choice of fax machines on their website which is so simple to navigate, I may just find myself purchasing a fax machine from them before too long.

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