This is in response to the e-letter I sent to Farmers Insurance’s President, Paul N. Hopkins
The subject line read: Paul N. Hopkins – Consumer Complaint
I got the following apology from someone named, Bill Matlock. I believe that he is Farmers State Executive Director. But I could be wrong. He didn’t include his signature, title or contact information in his apology e-mail. In fact, he didn’t even include his name. I got that off the e-mail address.
Here’s what he said (with analysis):
Mrs Rosenberg,
[note: not even a ‘Dear’ – am I being chided or am I getting an apology?]
On behalf of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies, we apologize for the inconvenience this matter has caused you. We will work accordingly with Mr. Ramano [note: he spelled the name of his own agent incorrectly] to have your husbands [Note the punctuation] name removed from their mailing list.
We take great pride in professionally representing the insurance industry in all facets and meeting the needs of the clients that are a part of the Farmers family.
Again, I truly regret the inconvenience this matter has caused and if you wish to further discuss, please feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
[Note: That’s it. No name, nothing more – and certainly NO contact information!] —-Did you see what is glaringly missing here? No?
Read my response, then:
Dear Mr. Matlock,
Thank you for your note.
I appreciate your clearing us off your rolls.
But this is a bigger problem.
You haven’t addressed the company policy of permitting, or encouraging, your agents or brokers to send out sensitive information on postcards or other publicly visible media.
If this were just about me, I wouldn’t have addressed my ncerns to the president of your company. (Still waiting for a response.)
I would appreciate getting a response about your corporate policy on this practice.
[No response from him, Farmers Insurance’s president, or their public relations folks. I did, politely request a reply by yesterday, so I could post it today. Naturally, I assumed the reply would be – ‘Oh goodness! We had no idea this was going on. We will immediately issue a directive to stop this behavior in the future.’Really. I AM naive enough to believe in the integrity and goodness of corporate executives. Am I being silly again? ]
Note: Discussion of this issue is going on here:
https://taxquips.com/index.php?id=483
Someone else is not happy about the way Farmers
does business either. It’s almost as if they
want me to register a complaint with the State
of California’s Insurance Commissioner,
Steve Poizner to address advertising ethics.
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/
What do you think?
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- Tax Insider :: Open Letter to Farmers Insurance
- TaxQuip #483 :: Personal Violations
