It never hurts to ask

You may remember that I wrote about insurance a few days ago in my post Are you really insured? 

One of the stories I related came from my Friday morning radio programme Simply Living with Jill Bonanno and was about a lady who’d had her handbag swiped.

Jill recently spoke to a lady who had her handbag stolen while she was out. She did the right thing and cancelled all her cards but as her bag contained items that would identify her home address and her house keys she decided to change all her door locks.

Unfortunately her insurance company didn’t cover the bag or any of the items in the bag because it wasn’t at her home at the time.

During Friday’s programme we had a talk back caller tell us about his experience with an insurance company.

Bill had a different story. He had four quad motor bikes. When the two smallest ones were stolen from a locked shed, his insurer told him that they didn’t cover quad bikes. Bill politely stood his ground and will now have the bikes replaced. Apparently they do cover quads up to 250cc.

The lady who had her bag stolen was listening to our programme and decided it was worth another call to her insurance company. She called, politely stated her case, and now her insurer is going to cover everything, including the new locks for her home.

I wonder how often we just give up on something when a phone call or an email could change things for the better.

How many times do we buy defective products and just put up with them when we could get our money back or get a better product? How many times do we accept the word of the first person we talk to, rather than standing our ground and politely taking things a little further?

I’ve been amazed by the helpful responses I’ve recieved at times when I’ve simply taken the time to respectfully ask the right people the right questions. I’ve had products replaced or money returned. Sometimes I’ve been more than compensated for the failure of a product or a service. It doesn’t happen every time but it does pay to take things just a little bit further sometimes.

Have you got any stories of businesses who have done the right thing when you’ve complained?



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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