Although this past week in Salt Lake City was uneventful, things were a little more hectic on the home front, and not in a good way.  I woke up to a text message from my brother on Wednesday to “Please call me first thing when you wake up. I have something important to tell you.”  This had my head racing from the second I got up, but waited a few hours to call my brother as I was an hour ahead. It turned out my car was broken into at a restaurant near the airport, where my brother had gone after picking up my parents from the airport. The driver-side rear window was broken and a hand bag was stolen that included various jewelry and gadgets, including an iPad we had just bought my mom a few months ago. The news wasn’t so bad considering where my head was upon getting the original text message. And considering they were all replaceable items, although not very cheap, worse things could have happened. None of the luggage in the trunk was taken.

Picture of the Jeep Wrangler’s driver-side rear window after it was shattered as part of a break-in on Tuesday, July 17, 2012.

However, this is where things got annoying. We, as a family, all have Allstate insurance. My parents have homeowners and auto insurance, my brother has renters and auto insurance, and I have auto insurance. Since the cost to replace the window was less than my deductible, the cost was all out of pocket under my auto insurance.  From what we understood, the stolen items would be covered under my parents homeowners insurance. However, Allstate has decided not to pay the claim to replace any of the stolen items, which amounted to over $4,000. They seem to be giving us the runaround regarding the reason for not covering the theft.  Specifically, they’re saying the property isn’t covered beyond 50 miles from home, which is just asinine and contrary to their advertisements / website.

Let’s take a look at the specifics. The Allstate website states:

“If you have Allstate homeowners insurance with Personal Property Coverage or if you have renters insurance, your possessions are covered from theft and other covered losses anywhere you travel in the world.”

Sounds simple enough to me, so we logged into my parents Allstate insurance account to view the policy and it states:

Personal Property Protection – Actual Cash Value $122,500

$50 Other Peril Deductible Applies

Deductible for Severe Hurricanes Applies*

So what am I missing? There’s a big disconnect between “anywhere you travel in the world” and “beyond 50 miles from home.” This is why insurance companies get a bad rap… and rightfully so. This is especially concerning considering my parents have had Allstate homeowners insurance for almost 40 consecutive years… 40 YEARS!!! And this is how they treat loyal customers. Well, my family has decided, all of us, to move our insurance coverage to another carrier yet to be determined. Until then, this has the makings of another Better Business Bureau complaint, which has worked for me in the past with complaints against AT&T and DirecTV / Consolidated Smart Systems.

We shall see. Either way, I’m able to get over the Jeep being broken into and having items get stolen. In the end, $#!t happens. But I’m unable to get over an insurance company not paying the claim as they’re supposed to. And it seems they’re just cutting off their nose to spite their face as they will be losing much more than the claim amount in insurance premiums once the family changes carriers.