Hartford provides high premiums and excessive fees
on a budget, an aggressive saver, an moderate investor
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JUL
21
2008
The Hartford —
To summarize briefly -- this company has looked and will continue to identify novel ways to charge you unexpected fees.Review:
I had an auto policy with the Hartford for approximately 5 years, which I recently canceled.
Although I had wanted to change insurance providers for quite some time (there are well-known competitors that certainly charge less), I had multiple policies tied in to Hartford.
A laundry list of annoyances:
-received a $2 "discount" off our $1000 deductible (.2% discount, if used) for customer loyalty, but premium rose by over $100 (~10% increase, must pay). (No accidents occured in >3 years)
-multiple payments were mailed on time, but were received 'late' by Hartford. I don't like fees, so I pay my bills as soon as I receive them. Payments were sent 10 days before the due date. Good luck arguing with Hartford.
-Hartford also altered the payment structure for the policy without notice -- from payments due 10 out of 12 months to 4 out of 12 months. This effectively increases the bill 3-fold. Since the company charges high premiums, and tripled the payment due.... I'm left to suspect that Hartford is vastly more interested in obtaining profit from late fees, than providing a beneficial service to their customers.
- I canceled our policy one month into our most recent renewal. I expected our bill to be 1/12 of a year's premium ($60) but the bill that arrived was 3 times higher ($180). The fee structure included special rates for short-term coverage and administrative fees for cancellation. These fees were not disclosed in the policy -- though Hartford claims that they were disclosed through the insurance broker (which they weren't).
The cost of late fees and installment fees are disclosed in the insurance policy. Importantly however, there is no mention of 'other' fees charged by Hartford. Thus, as a policyholder , you will likely not be aware of their existence - but nevertheless, will ultimately be responsible for their payment.
Altogether, I'm left feeling that this company is at best deceitful. At worst, I would say -- your safest move is to research another provider.
Last edited on Jul 22, 2008
The Hartford is not recommended by kcubelcnu
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