U.S. Financial “has completely ignored me for the past two months,” he emailed SOS on Dec. 21. “I’m not sure who this company actually is anymore.” He said that in a course of one week, he spent two hours, 42 minutes and 23 seconds on three calls to the number on the late notice and never got through to a human.
Indeed, SOS couldn’t determine for sure who was in charge at U.S. Financial, so it cast a wide net, sending Stuvengen’s concerns to email addresses associated with possible parent companies Equitable, of New York City, and Heritage Life, of Chicago, on Dec 29.
Michelle Casaus, a senior operations manager at Heritage, responded promptly and took responsibility.
Heritage had recently purchased U.S. Financial from Equitable, letters with some “confusing information” had gone out, and the call center was jammed, she said. Leading to the customer service stumbles, she said, was the insurance industry’s attempts to accommodate various states’ requests to provide policy-holders with some leniency on late payments due to the widespread economic misery caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stuvengen confirmed on Wednesday that Casaus had contacted him to confirm his policy was still in effect and his future payments would be deducted automatically from his checking account.
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