2023.01.27 [CORP] INS—LTR TO HUB Ombudsperson & Management Team

QR CODE TO PAGE

WITH A LINK TO PDF

OF THIS LETTER:

Dear HUB Management Team and Ombudsperson Office,

Dear HUB Management Team, and Ombudsperson Office,

We ask your office to carefully examine the chronology of the selfology file and how it was handled in the past year, not merely the timing between correspondences but also the handling, especially from when the change of agent occurred and of the proclaimed “recent” transfer back to what appears to be a manager of the agent.  

Please invite us to meet with your ombudsperson instead of being forced to speak through the agent’s manager (whom we only just know her name through the January 21st, 2023 email from this manager), as that is already showing bias from the decisions made, and that is precisely where the problem is arising from.   Hence, we are asking to begin to involve an obvious escalation of the file for review.  

We are starting with our own “statement”, as in this letter, and we are willing to try your internal Dispute/Complaint Resolution steps first, as we do not wish to accuse HUB of Bad Faith Handling publicly easily.  The file seems to be staying at the same desk and without a proper acknowledgement at all, as if these roles can select and filter these files as they so please to work on.   It makes you wonder where their near-perfect scores on complaints come from, and now, you know one of the potential factors.      Many people would indeed give up in the face of such.

Understanding The Case

This is a story on how HUB International treated its insured (policyholders) in the year 2022, who has been with them for eight years on a policy with no paid claims.     If you care for HUB’s reputation either as an employee or a policyholder, you should read this carefully.  The way this letter/statement is to provide as much information, structure, and perspectives of the situation, and please pardon the re-messaging nature of the notes and occasional typos due to time pressures – we are happy to answer any questions from your ombudsperson office as we advance.

We will be publishing these in due course to external when due and forced—what else can we do against such a large entity with such arbitrary behaviours, especially with their internal operations, and the changing “agent” experience is so questionable?    Remember HUB control the rules and processes. We are also preparing for clarity and for the public if we are forced to share the history recorded as is.

Inviting HUB’s Comments

We, of course, are also inviting your input into our current views of the matter.    Feel free to arrange a time to meet us formally.    

There are also practical and immediate solutions as well, click on the link to jump to “Solution Number One”.

Is This Bad Faith or Good Faith?

Let’s now try to understand why HUB can ignore our written communication for so long and return like a beast as if we have wronged them with much folly.    

After our most recent formal communication with HUB circa October 2022, they suddenly appeared four days ago (January 23, 2023), giving us less than two weeks – and the email practically assumed the less convenient questions were all taken cared of, or as if those things never ever happened.   They sort of completely skipped and ignored problems they do not feel they own.  

Then it provided an ultimatum of sorts by Feb 3rd, 2023, as if we never wished to pay.  

“Recently”

The email also mentions that the file is only “recently” been taken up by this management.  Is that because of the remote office, generating some indifferences between departments? Almost like a mockery, as if other parts of the organization have nothing to do with them at all.   To us HUB is one thing, one company.

“Earned Premium”

Then the email also added in the “earned premium” debt collection warning, further incinerating a sort of information twisted – e.g. we always asked to see the payment plan so we could start paying as we did in the past seven years with HUB – something we never received, a process that we saw from the past (7) years and this is indeed a very different year—but if you only read this email from the manager, it makes it sound like we are not.

A Customer or Employee?

And how do we start a process that can only begin from HUB’s Brokerage Office?

So even if HUB’s manager has answered and responded professionally and timely to all valid questions, which obviously did not happen, HUB’s handling experiences are certainly far from Utmost Good Faith.  

Final by all HUB Roles?

At this point, it feels as if the entire HUB Brokerage organization is backing up this one manager, that she has the backing from Underwriters (e.g. premium and coverage questions due to change in location as specified in the prior communication).   We need help from the Ombudsperson – and we will need their formality, and if they so choose to learn about the escalation and deem this file not valid for even a proper acknowledgement, we will continue to seek insights from roles found in the HUB Management Team.   Ultimately, we are hoping the same manager cannot make further arbitrary actions that are harming a policyholder that has been with you for the eighth year.

To Call or Not To Call?

The manager provides a half-willing invitation to “call her to discuss” if we so wish.   Does that sound like an Utmost Good Faith invite to find a straightforward resolution? It feels more like an act to clear files off the desk from her “recent” take-up of “Mike’s” work.  

We believe speaking to this “Account Executive” directly on the phone (who appears to be a direct manager for the agent in question) as she casually invited us to do if “we wish to discuss further” as the email ends—do you think it would be a fair and good faith discussion? Would it bring further delay and unfair disadvantage to our file?     Does she really want to speak to the policyholder to see what fits their needs today, or is she going back to the status quo no matter what? We still have outstanding coverage questions and doubts, and could she answer them with good faith?

Peace of Mind for Earned Premiums

And the worse part is likely the assumption HUB has already provided the advertised Peace of Mind to their insured as “earned premiums”, or else, we will come after you as debt collectors (please addendum these letters if you do)—so, in a way, it is a deliberate pressure with a top-down approach, placed near the end of the letter, and while it is a fact more than a threat, there are many things you can choose to say to the insured to end a letter, especially after such unusually long delay and file transfer, a file with so many outstanding questions to be responded to.

It feels as if the manager has based the assumptions that everything else in the file is resolved if it is not a problem deemed by her, and the only matter left is what she is tasked to do, so she starts warning people as if that is always the solution to her usual problems.     That is why we ask HUB if this is usual and normal, so is this your status quo, Mx. HUB?

It certainly prompted this formal letter in calling for your Ombudsperson (or similar role, please).    

Are There More People Being Treated With Such Bad Faith?

As we ponder this together as a team, writing these down as our written statement, we wonder, how many more people are being treated like this?    We can’t be alone.

There are no softer apologies, just telling from parent to child that the use of the word “recently” for we assumed she just realized and noticed an email we sent to their agent (Mike/Michael A.) in October 2022, recently?  Only three months later.   We gave HUB months with no follow-up (which is a pattern in the year 2022 aforementioned), and even after so many goodwill gestures, we are now seeking the highest office (e.g. ombudsperson/HUB Management Team).   No one ever reached out. No one from HUB.   We even gave them the benefit of the doubt, but they were still nowhere to be seen.     That is one kind of bad-faith handling.    The Ombuds must know this.

We Though You Are Too Busy & On Holiday

In hindsight, we admit we may be too naive to allow so much time to lapse – for example, we thought we should let you all take a good holiday first, and then comes this email Monday, January 21, 2023. It feels impersonal, and it certainly does feel like you cannot trust HUB when a claim comes.   It feels like HUB’s people will work against you.

Formal Request for Entering Complaint Resolution Process

We ask HUB’s Ombudsperson to have a non-bias look at it again before we are forced to find external mediation methods.   It is mentioned in the Jan 21, 2023 (Monday) reply by the HUB manager that correspondence are read – we question if that can be true because her decision of immediate lump sum payment within roughly a week’s end date with potential cancellation, plus a collection warning as if we have never wanted to pay, and the failure to provide formal rejection to a payment plan (which is odd, as we used that for the past seven years) – are just some of the things that make us feel harmed, that unnecessary undue hardship from her actions. It feels off, and this letter is to try to begin to map out the reason it feels off for the senior management team.

We wish to mention that we have always been asking to pay, and we are waiting for the same payment arrangement documentation and procedures as before—which we never ever received.     After three months of waiting to find out your manager only just “recently” took over Agent “Mike”s file, it sounds like an area to explore further.

We did mention knowing your office is busy, and this kind of pattern filled the Year 2022.   Not to mention the change of agent and the way the agent was changed.       

Payment Plan Documentation/Process Still Missing

Again, annoyingly, we have never mentioned we are not paying – we are asking for the same payment plan arrangement we had had for the past seven years (before the sudden change in agent to Michael or Mike as the manager calls him in her email) – to which we never received any arrangement papers like before, and the way the agent handled this file this year – please let us know if all these are considered normal at HUB. If it is, we are leaving, and we will let our friends and supporters know well (HI/AI/SEO).   If we are wrong, we will stand to apologize to HUB publicly, and we will also be finding new coverage elsewhere at that point (and you will have to hold coverage until we do find coverage) – as that kind of normal is, for us, considered bad faith handling.

And we cannot begin to imagine the games HUB people are willing to play when real Canadian people have a real claim on these insurance “promises” you are making on behalf of Insurers.  

Imagine a file with a chronology looking as such – even with our best intention to layout the solution, which is simply getting your team to prepare the payment plan as per usual, like the past seven years with HUB as a policyholder – we are surprised to hear such a cold and demanding letter as if protecting your colleague is more important than being right for your policyholder – your HUB customers.      

And the invitation to “call to discuss” with someone who claims to have read the correspondences, and to come to that decision that you see, is very alarming (like a Feudal Lord would), and I invite the leaders at HUB to consider a wiser approach – a more customer-centric approach, rather than treating people as if you are the only provider in Canada.

And we do want your internal Complaint Resolution Department to be involved.  Please immediately assign this role or formally reject the assignment of this role, and that will force us to take a very broad approach with HUB – taking our voices to be heard. Why are those methods more feasible than treating your policyholder with good faith and putting them on the same plan before, taking their first lump sum deposit as offered in one of the correspondences in September, and answering their coverage questions, and timely for this eight-year policyholder? And stop festering them with fear and threats and begin to find creative or just better ways to welcome a HUB client, especially under such circumstances.

Let’s take this deeper. If your manager has read the correspondence, there should be a part where we repeatedly asked for (like here again) that we wish to be on the same plan as the prior seven years, and we have no idea why your office responded in the way you did in the year 2022 (please review the chronology of the correspondence between your agents and our office).  

Retention of Records

Please retain all information as we wish to be able to ask for them through the proper channel if we do go to the courts.

Please let us know if you need to see all the correspondence records as we have them all, call transcriptions, and then all written after a point when the trust of HUB evaporated, so it is heartbreaking to see people from HUB so focused on their own interests only.

It is like you only care for one thing, that is– pay the bill, or else I will cancel and collect, and for those E&O to BFH (Bad Faith Handling) matters, they are invisible to your HUB Management Team, as HUB knows they can ignore small insured, and there is nothing much they can do about it—this is how we feel about HUB’s treatment today in the year 2022.  

Is this true? Do you feel this way about your insured?  

Solution Number One

Granted, for you, maybe the only interest is the billing matter. We can only judge from the surface, so please elaborate if you wish to tell us what we may not be able to see something from our angle.  

So, for the “billing” part of the situation (note that the case has many folds, including bad faith handling, and is why we were preparing for an escalation months ago)—the precarious state HUB has placed an eight years insured/policyholder with no claims history (besides one investigation where the claimant backed away as it was clearly not our fault), we are asking you to consider this solution, that we will at most be able to plan a budget for four payments over four months, so from Feb to July 2023, for this premium at approx. $3,900 (annual).

The budget is tight for small businesses, and we do not wish to make such a large change to our budget to accommodate your own error and omission and bad-faith handling.   Not our problem, and you could have taken our premium earned over time, and why should we be punished for your punctuation matters? You also placed us under no peace of mind, and now, with this “recently” email to our letter a quarter of a year ago from your manager, is the very last draw to formalize the complaint.

We can immediately forward four cheques paid over four months as one of the solutions we are willing to give in a little – let us know by writing, please, from your Ombudsperson Office. Of course, having it the way it was before, where we were on a payment plan, is the best way to go – that would tell us you are serious about resolution and taking care of the customer/insured who trusted you all these years.   As before, please do respond to these “proposals” so we can take the next step.   Ghosting your client doesn’t work and will become very costly for the company.

Worse come to worse, four months over is fine, and we will continue to be kind to HUB on that front (we have always been kind until this letter).  We are all working-class small businesses, who fought the pandemic and war-like market times, and we have a lot of support in the Vancouver area –bringing lots of loving hearts close to us. People really dislike certain corporatist behaviours these days.    

We hope HUB International is a company that gives peace of mind and is serious about local people and businesses, not just some paper pushers for the actuaries.

This experience does not feel like peace of mind when we can describe so many downplays by some of the agents from HUB ever since the agent change.  It feels extra insulting when you mentioned “premium earned”.  

Again, we do prefer our usual tradition with your premium paid monthly over the annual, but worse would be four payments over four months.   If agreed, we will mail you physical cheques – no PADs (Pre-Authorided Debits) until our public trust is restored with HUB.    

You did not earn your premium well this year at all. Can we go back to the first agent?

Sorry for sounding like a Grandparent, as it is making this insured very weary, and we do not wish our words to be sliced by more “verbal” conversations. Please take this and all written matters HUB has on this file as the “statement” to HUB’s investigators.  

We also may wish to see your notes if things continue to stay unreasonable.

We will not hesitate for too long to bring further justification and adjustment to this case. 

Going Forward

We look forward to the results of your collaboration with the necessary role in your organization, and we are happy to meet any of you in person. We came to you by referral eight years ago, and Michael received the file from the first agent.   It is rather disappointing and strange that the “chronology” of the file gets no mention at all, and you wish to place an ultimatum and a deadline to this obvious dispute/complaint, which has never received proper resolution actions – it just jumps straight to billing/cancellation/collection as if that is the only concern here.  

We are sorry this added to your already heavy load at work, but we do not wish to sacrifice further in the name of your impossible workload (as mentioned in prior correspondence to you).   Does that mean we have to source the right mind from the outside to review the files?     Should we escalate this to an external mediation entity or governing associations, and if so, why would you go that far instead of the payment plans as usual?  

Do you care about the feasibility at all, or who cares if the company is paying for the consequences?

We will not hesitate to reach out to journalists if they fancy some insight about the nature of insurance during this time.     Patience was afforded.   What happened to Michael (or Mike)? What happened to his assistance(s)? Why ignore our written responses?   We call this bad faith handling, with very missing utmost good faith.

We hope the case can rest with someone listening and applying wisdom to resolve such a simple matter that could easily be solved in the first place –   respond with a payment plan (the documents etc.), and respond to them in a timely and good faith fashion going forward.   Delaying, making veiled threats, and cancelling based on narrow perspectives are just some of the things we wish to sum up here. We hope the file can now leave the handling manager’s hands into the ombudsperson’s hands.

It is very frustrating to be placed in this precarious situation by your supposed Peace of Mind provider.  Is this being done to many people in this town?

Change of Agent and Manager

Please, we sincerely ask you to take a look at the communication chronology of the file we look forward to restoring speedy communication and placing us on a payment plan as before, and also that we definitely need to have a new agent (maybe David from before?)

When ego gets in the way, the public comes.

Mx. Peter Tu & Mx. Jessica Yu

On Behalf of Selfology CoCreators / Heart Office

selfology.co/HUB

TABLE-OF-CONTENT

2023.01.27 [CORP] INS—LTR TO HUB Ombudsperson & Management Team. 1

Dear HUB Management Team and Ombudsperson Office, 2

Understanding The Case.. 2

Inviting HUB’s Comments. 3

Is This Bad Faith or Good Faith?. 3

“Recently”. 3

“Earned Premium”. 3

A Customer or Employee?. 4

Final by all HUB Roles?. 4

To Call or Not To Call?. 4

Peace of Mind for Earned Premiums. 4

Are There More People Being Treated With Such Bad Faith?. 5

We Though You Are Too Busy & On Holiday.. 5

Formal Request for Entering Complaint Resolution Process. 5

Payment Plan Documentation/Process Still Missing.. 6

Retention of Records. 7

Solution Number One.. 7

Going Forward.. 9

Change of Agent and Manager. 10

TABLE-OF-CONTENT. 11