Old-School

I miss my insurance agent.

I'm not sure that I've started a post so oddly in my life, but I'm okay with it. I really do miss my insurance agent. I was with Joe Cerroni for a long time and I really liked the guy. Every time I think insurance I think of Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day, but Joe wasn't like that. He was friendly, calm in crisis, helpful, thoughtful, and professional. I liked calling my insurance agent. He made me feel good. Part of that was an additional quality Joe possessed as a person in business: he was old-school.

On birthdays he would send a postcard. He followed up with us after we had had a problem. He didn't send email but made phonecalls. He mentioned things we might want to add to our policy but never pushed the sale. I recommended him to everyone I know.

Then he retired. I wish him well in everything, but oh how I miss my insurance agent.

The folks who took over his agency are nice enough. They are up to date. I get automated emails about things. They tell me every little product I might want to purchase. They are new-school in every way.

A few weeks ago when I bought a new car, I visited the new offices, got lost in the hallways, and eventually found the agent. We sat down and she worked at selling me a whole new plan. The idea was to save me some money. She tried to get me to buy an umbrella plan. I said no. She worked out a whole new plan for our home owner's insurance and switched things around for the car. It took just over two hours of a day I had meant to save for myself.

I never spent more than half an hour in Joe's office. He moved it right along. Easy-peasy.

About two weeks later I got a call from the new office saying there was a problem. The inspector had decided that our roof looked sketchy. He did this from the ground and I wonder what the assessment would have been had there been the usual four inches of snow up there. Whatever the case, the policy was now declined and the agent said we had two choices: go back to the old policy or put on a new roof. I assumed her use of "we" did not extend to helping us pay for a new roof, so I said to go back to the old policy.

Today I received word from the bank that holds our mortgage saying that we don't have hazard insurance and the bank is going to charge us for that. Ugh. I called my agent but of course they aren't open on the weekend. I'll have to deal with this next week.

If this were Joe, I might be looking forward to the call. It's not Joe. It's definitely not Joe.

In the mail today was a letter from our retirement guy, Rob Sylvester, with a form I had requested. Along with the form was a handwritten note on paper showing that Rob supports Guiding Eyes For The Blind (nice!) explaining where I needed to sign and thanking me for working with him. Old-school in the extreme and just to my liking. If only he sold insurance.

I'm old-school, or, as Johnny Mercer wrote:

I'm old fashioned
But I don't mind it
That's how I want to be
As long as you agree To stay old fashioned with me
Oh won't you stay old fashioned with me
Oh please stay old fashioned with me