April 2023 by George J.
Stay away from their insurance agency.I called a few months ago to get an insurance quote. The first guy I talked to was extremely unprofessional. I called the manager of the Rapid City branch over on Omaha (Teresa Rypkema) and she was very nice and professional to me and was going to help me, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel...Or so I thought! Everything was fine and well, I was quoted a good rate, went to their office, had a good conversation with Teresa and she was seemingly professional and jovial and got me taken care of. I thought everything was fine and no issues.Fast forward to about a month ahead to April, I start getting notices and emails from Progressive (the ins. company they signed me up with) stating I need to provide proof of home ownership... What? Home ownership? I did not allude nor hint or even say that I owned a home. In fact I told Teresa Rypkema, in her office sitting right there, that I lived in an APARTMENT. I even had her forward my mail to a PO box I own because I told her where I live, our mail is sent to a common area where all the residents can see everyone's mail, because we don't have mail boxes or anything so its all sent to the front office, and since I am a proponent of confidentiality and privacy - i'd much rather have my mail sent to my PO box. She had no problem with this.So now because on my policy I am now listed as a home owner and it was put on there in error - and since because I don't own a home and didn't provide 'proof' of owning a home, Progressive removed the 'discount' I had on there. Now I owe progressive more money than I was quoted AFTER THE FACT of paying for the insurance and having everything drawn up simply because of an error on the companies part.I asked the company to make an in good faith adjustment or pay it out of their pocket, and well - you can guess how much luck I had with that. I was given 2 options by Teresa @ Bankwest. 1.) Pay the difference out of my own pocket, or 2.) cancel my policy. That's it. Cancel or pay. So they basically told me to go pound sand for an error THEY were responsible for! All of this could have been avoided if she had just asked me the relevant questions while I was on the phone with her, or even in her office. She could have given me an ACCURATE amount for a quote and I could have made a best guess assessment but that option was not given to me.So when the guy was rude and unprofessional to me when I first called, I should have taken that as a sign and a hint. Live and learn I reckon.My takeaway from this is, and this might be a stretch - but this is a gut feeling I have... I think she needed to meet her quota or goal to get compensation from her company for policy signups and fraudulently put the wrong information on my documents to get me a lower premium to get me to say go ahead and pay and then let the cards fall where they may. But that's just me. The fact that I did everything I could while sitting in her office and exchanging emails and multiple phone calls to give her all the relevant info she needed to get me an accurate quote and she STILL failed to that, I mean I just....I DID make every effort to get Bankwest Ins. to resolve this and do the right thing and just pay the difference since it was their error, not mine - but since they don't want to do the right thing, lets see how much this negative review costs them in lost revenue instead.STAY WAY FROM BANKWEST!
