For those of you who have had the misfortune of making an unsuccesful insurance claim of late or who have been following the saga of our two claims from the Nationwide Building Society that spend millions of pounds advertising that they don’t act like the banks who as portrayed in their ads as moneygrubbing scum, this letter that I wrote to them upon our claims being rejected again may be of interest.
11 April 2008
(Name of staff member withheld)
Nationwide Building Society
Insurance Claims Department
Claims Team 1
Kings Park Road
Moulton Park
Northampton
NN3 6NW
Dear (Name of staff member withheld)
I received your letter dated 10 April, never have I read a correspondance so overburdoned with farcical comments and patronising platitudes.
I have made several hundred photocopies of it and tomorrow morning I shall take the train into Edinburgh and place them in various public conveniences in the city centre for people to use when toilet roll runs out as the nonsense that is contained on those two pages ranks alongside Hillary Clinton’s recent misspeaking.
Actually wiping one’s anus with those letters places them on a category higher than the contents really deserve, but at least whilst the user is waiting to apply the paper to the job in hand they might have a right good laugh reading Nationwide’s authorised tosh.
I will not take the Mondial claim any further because you seem to have found a neat get out clause. But, just for the record I will once again remind you that we did not inform you of my father’s condition because he was not in the travelling party, none of the travelling party was unfit and more importantly, as I have told you and Mondial on numerous occassions, two consultant’s told us, indeed recommended to us, that we went on holiday, post diagnosis. We were told my father had six to nine months to live, and that the holiday would be important for us to build up a bit of energy for what lay in store later in the year.
The holiday was three weeks after the diagnosis and so, acting on their advice, we confirmed that we would travel and booked the insurance.
But it is your job as insurers to unearth the most appropriate terms and conditions to invalidate a claim.
So, hey, you win.
Well done.
Sleep well tonight.
Your thoughts were so touching and comforting when you said in your letter
“I am sorry that I cannot bring you more welcome news in such a difficult time for you.”
Awww, bless.
And if you’re looking for a good place for your summer holidays try Lagos in Portugal. It’s lovely. But expensive for four days!
Now. The kitchen claim. That’s a different matter entirely and it ain’t job done “screwed another sucker behind the façade of a nice letter” yet.
I do not accept your findings and do not find your “goodwill” gesture.
Goodwill?
Goodwill is doing the job. Actually, no it isn’t. Goodwill is doing more than the job.
How dare you suggest that replacing half a kitchen is goodwill.
Can you begin to fathom how insulting, patronising, cheap, tacky and irritating the use of that word in the context of this situation is? No? Well I’ll tell you.
It is very insulting patronising tacky and irritating.
Goodwill is honouring more than your side of the bargain.
And lest it is unclear let me spell out to you what that bargain is.
Step 1 Our house goes on fire (not part of our plans that Saturday in dim and distant January, not part of the plans at all. Oh no; that was definitely one of the things most of us would plan not to do.)
Step 2 We discover part of our kitchen is burned
Step 3 Loss adjuster visits, agrees with us and signs off our claim
Step 4 Replacement parts for the damaged area of the kitchen cannot be sourced therefore our entire kitchen is rendered damaged. I think it’s called a write off in insurance parlance. It’s just like if you crash the front part of your car and it is irrepairable (like our kitchen) the car is written off and you’re required to replace the whole car. Not cut off the back end and weld on a new front end. That would be silly.
Step 5 You ignore this technicality and spend the next 4 months conjuring up reasons to only pay for half the kitchen as an “act of Goodwill”. I don’t want half a kitchen (Name of staff member withheld) I want a whole one. Just like I don’t make half an insurance premium payment I make a whole one.
It really is very, very simple.
Step 6 You see my point. (at last) You stop acting like half the cost of kitchen will bring Nationwide Building Society to its knees (you’ve got a credit crunch to do that) and act like a courteous, mutual society – not like corporate, moneygrubbing nincompoops.
Step 7 I convince the friend of mine who had £75,000 in savings in your organisation but moved it away upon hearing of my story, to move it back again – as an act of “goodwill.”
Come on (Name of staff member withheld). This is just silly. I don’t want to shell out half of the cost of a new kitchen. I just want my old one back the way it was. But it’s been discontinued. That’s unfortunate. That, frankly is your problem.
Assuming you see the error of your ways and steps 5 – 7 unfold I will not have to bring in the insurance ombudsman and I will go round the cubicles of Edinburgh’s Public Conveniences and uplift the aforementioned bogroll.
Oh, and you may have noticed that as an ”act of goodwill” I have refrained from swearing at any point in this letter.
Yours sincerely
Mark Gorman