Ness’ Outpost

Our offer on a home in Mississauga was accepted on Monday. Tonight on the news I saw a huge drop in the TSX and a story about how the real estate market has cooled off. Apparently sellers are having to wait longer to make the sale, and with the increased number of homes on the market buyers are in no rush to make a deal. Luckily prices have remained constant so far.

Scary times ahead indeed both financially and with all the joys of home ownership. Everybody has to live somewhere no matter what the financial or real estate markets dictate. Hopefully I won’t lose my shirt.

My auto insurance policy came up for renewal in March of 2008. I did not receive any of my documentation in the mail concerning my policy renewal - but since it was not returned to sender The Personal assumed I had received it. I only discovered that I was driving with out updated insurance documents when I renewed my license plate sticker on April 30, 2008. I doddled a bit, but eventually did call The Personal and requested a new set of documents be mailed to me. These documents never arrived — and interestingly enough The Personal representitive that I spoke to does not have a record of this communication when I called to argue my payment of the penalty fee.

Since the documents didn’t arrive and I was now aware that I was diving with old insurance documents I started talking to friends and family about their insurance. I discovered I was being grossly over charged compared to the market for my 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier. I knew people with 2006 vehicles paying less insurance with the same deductibles as myself! What is even worse is that I was receiving a discount because of my OSPE membership — the premium could have been even higher. I shopped around and found a far better deal than The Personal could offer me and wanted to switch. I cancelled my policy and was charged an exorbitant fee to do so.

My final payment which is to be made on June 16th - I’m sure mostly is composed of the penalty fee for cancelling the contract - is approximately $280. My monthly payments were approximately $175.

I was a good customer, always paid my bill on time and never had an NSF payment failure to The Personal. I started my auto insurance plan in late 2005 with them. Only in March of 2007 when I had to change my address and get rental insurance did my auto premium jump greatly. This was explained to me because I live in Mississauga.

The only leverage I have left in this situation is to write about my account and discourage others from doing business with The Personal because of the way I was treated.

• I was not notified of my renewal
• I continued to pay my bill on time every month
• When I discovered my renewal had passed and found a better deal The Personal was not willing to admit their inability to provide me with the information I needed to make a timely decision.
• I did not ask for a refund. I only wish not to pay the penalty fee for contract termination as I did not knowingly enter a new contract. The insurance business has me here though as policies automatically renew if no action is taken.
• I will make my money back by switching in 3 months. But this is still my hard earned money I won’t get back.

My only advice to others in a similar situation is to do things in a different order. My proactive order was what has caused problems for myself. Had I recorded proper documentation of my call to request my renewal package I would be in a far better bargaining position. When you call the first time be sure to notify the agent that you did not receive any renewal documentation.

Please avoid doing business with The Personal. I never had to make a claim but I hope they are excellent at customer service during that time of need because they over charged me while I lived in Mississauga and were forced me to the letter of my contract.

My cancelled policy number was: K2568236 Feel free to quote that and provide them with the URL to this page.

Once I move from my apartment and can also cancel my rental insurance I will be one customer The Personal will never see again.

I picked up some new tires at Active Green & Ross today. Monday night was pretty slippery so I decided it was time to replace the Goodyear/Handcook mix that came on my orphan’s rims when I got her about a year ago. Since I’m on vacation this week to study for my PPE exam I had some time to burn.

I bought some Uniroyal Tiger Paw AS65’s which are rated for 110k km. It was one of those buy one get one 1/2 off deals, but I still had to pay for balancing and valves of course so it becomes less attractive. But since I plan on riding out these tires until they or the car end I think it’s best to pay a bit more than going for the bargin basement tires.

Lauren took me out in her car in the WalMart parking lot and showed me the ways of the clutch.

I drove us home and only had to work over the starter a few times when I stalled her. I’d be alright with a standard, but it’s a skill that needs practice. Which isn’t something I’ll be doing any time soon.

Penelope went in for some repair work today. She needed to have her control arm bushings replaced. Control arm bushings are little rubber hockey pucks that cost $20, but the labour to replace them is huge since the entire front suspension is pretty much taken apart to get to them. So after doing the replacement an alignment needs to be done as well.

$600 of work and just under $100 of taxes later she’s running great. I splurged a bit and did some fluid flushing and fuel system cleaning since this is an “off lease” car and it doesn’t look like the previous owner took care of her on the outside, so I can’t she that she’d be well cared for on the inside either. Better to do it now than find out when things go bad later.

Last night was the last time I left work as a Zenon employee. This morning is my first experience becoming a GE employee.

Who knows what the future has in store? A little hard work lightly seasoned with some good luck and I should do all right.

Friday was a busy day. I started out with hockey in the morning after a night out at Ned’s with Kurt and some skiers. In the bottom of my hockey bag was my missing iron ring. It must have come off in my hockey glove and ended up in my bag.

After some 4 on 4 hockey - without a sub on the white team - it was back to work where I brought my chili in to heat up for the contest at lunch. 3 people voted for chili number one, 2 for mine and 1 for chili number two. But when the weighted matrix was added up I placed first. Those that liked mine, liked it a lot!

My .Net web services book showed up so I did some reading and then it was off to ZMP for a meeting about some corporate databases and a sub project I’m working on. Not too shaby for a Friday.

Oh, by the way. I’m sick like a dog too.

Today I was shaggy. I have a presentation on Monday so I figured it was time for a haircut in Milton. My barber was in Niagara Falls - where I used to live - and now I’m in Milton so it was time to try and find a new one.

A quick search showed two in Milton on Main St. Both Kurt and I thought Tony’s Barbershop had a good ring to it so I drove down there and checked them out. Tony’s was just what I was looking for, it is an ol’ time barbershop.

It wasn’t fancy with post modern art and furnature. It was homely and inviting. There was a coat rack that was kind of wobbly but held your coat. Four basic chairs supported customers as they queued up for a cut with the days news paper spread out all over them for customers to read.

The storefront is narrow but runs all the way to the back. There were two barbers on duty on Saturday morning an older gentleman and his successor, who knew his craft quite well. My beard was well taken care of with careful trimming and edging. The cut was smooth and slow, no rushing to get on to the next customer which causees the odd “oops” that you sometimes hear on the back of your head. Instead of using a dry razor or the close trimmer to shave the back of my neck I was treated to some heated shaving cream and a straight blade with aftershave and talcum powder to sooth my sensitive neck.

An amazing cut, all for only 12 dollars! Tony’s is the only place for me to get my hair cut in Milton.
They are the last of a dying bread of barbers. If you want the salon or spa feel - go somewhere else - but for a great cut check out Tony’s.

I took the time to go to work, vote, have dinner with the Biamontes - well it was more like after, but we tried. I then stuck around to watch a full Leafs vs. Sens game and on the way home bought gas for 90.9 cents/L.

That’s right, tonight all of Canada must watch TV - that is unless you can be there in person. The leaders debate is on tonight, be sure to watch so you can make an informed decision.

Plus I like to see some others sweat it out under the hot lights, just like public speaking back in grade school.

Update:
Did anybody notice the slight zoom in as the leaders were talking? When they got to the passionate part of their discussion they were pretty much in my living room.

Also Stephen Harpers practiced grin scared me. I think I’m going to have conservative nightmares tonight. Jack Layton just seemed like a sales man, I’m sick of hearing about the “other choice”.

I liked the flair that sparked on National Unity. It bothers me that the Bloc is invited to these debates. They should require a representitive from each province in order to qualify for the leaders debate.