Emergency Insurance claim through Assurion???

[Realestatepro]

Hello Everyone... I wanted to take a moment and share a story with you as i feel it provides some good info that every insured phone owner should know...

So this past weekend i went out with some friends and of course had several drinks... after everyone was clearly intoxicated we decided it was a great time to take pictures so of course since all my friends have I-Craps... i decided to allow them to use my TBolt to take pics since my flash and picture quality is by far way better on my TBolt than on their I-Craps... Anyways my friend who is clearly intoxicated ends up dropping my phone and the screen ends up shattering... ( photo came out great tho)

So the next morning (Sun) i decided to make a claim as i would be leaving on a business trip on Tues afternoon for a week... I made my claim and had the associate ship the new Tbolt to my office as there would be someone their to sign for it...So the phone gets shipped out Monday and i think all is well when to my surprise i get a call on Tues morning from UPS because they cannot seem to locate my address to make delivery of my phone... Now this to me is alarming as my company does a lot of business with UPS and they are at my office several times a day... so when i verify the address it turns out the Assurion agent put in the wrong zip and sent my phone to Arizona instead of Florida... So I immediately called Assurion and explained what is going on and the agent explains that if she initiates a new claim and resends another phone i wouldnt get a new phone until wed and as i mentioned earlier in my story i would be gone on business... so i explain she is going to have to do better then that so she says to me she was going to include all the accessories that are convered under warranty by assurion for the inconvenience this caused, however i explained to her that althought that was nice of her it still would not solve the problem of not having a working phone before my trip so she pauses for a second and then quietly says... " normally we are not allowed to tell customers to do this but.... Go to your local Corporate VZW store... explain that you are going away on business and that you need to file an EMERGENCY IN STORE CLAIM"...

So i went to my local store and spoke to a CSR and told him i needed to do an emergency insurance claim...the CSR looked at me kinda puzzled, he then grabs a manager... a few mins later the manager approaches me and asks me who prompted me to do this sort of claim and what classified it as an emergency.... so i explained what happened earlier and that i would be leaving on business later that afternoon... so the manager calls a special assurion number and 20 mins later not only do i have a brand new thunderbolt fresh out the box but they also gave me a insidio hard case, VZW car charger, skull candy wired head set, and a screen protector pack all paid for by assurion... not to mention i got to keep all the original accessories that came in the box with the new thunderbolt!!!

I wanted to share this story with you guys because i never knew that you could do an in store claim and from what i saw it seems that assurion just pays full retail for the phone and accessories on a corporate credit card of some sort...which is why i think they are so quiet about this service... however if your ever in a bind and are going away or need a phone immediately and cant wait for them to ship you out a phone... now you know there are other options they aren't telling you about!

Has anyone else ever done an emergency claim??

 

[project.in.process]

wow.

i've never done one..

but i have a feeling that now, sweeping across the nation, this is going to be the next great catch phrase among TB owners seeking an insurance claim

awesome if this all worked out as you say it did.

 

[dajogejr]

wow.

i've never done one..

but i have a feeling that now, sweeping across the nation, this is going to be the next great catch phrase among TB owners seeking an insurance claim

awesome if this all worked out as you say it did.

X2.

 

[RkyMtnHigh]

I see that option going away in about a month...

 

[jackmei2]

thanks for sharing the story, and glad it worked out really well for you in the end!

 

[Eclipse2K]

I see that option going away in about a month...

It'll go the way of the dinosaurs and multi-fru exchange.

 

[willymakit]

That sounds like a good story.

 

[Bailarge]

Yeah, what sucks is now this story will get out and I doubt this service will be around much longer. Won't affect me either way, though.

 

[0pusX]

I bet the call to asurion was to verify the "emergency claim" and once verified that asurion was at fault for the mixup, this was authorized. Doubt just anyone will be granted this service.

You can bet it was because asurion screwed up and they verified.

 

[TBolt2011]

I bet the call to asurion was to verify the "emergency claim" and once verified that asution was at fault fir the mixup, this was authorized. Doubt just anyone will be granted this service.

You can bet it was because asurion screwed up and they verified.

This was my thought too. They probably double checked all the info they got against each other to make sure permission was granted.

 

[Mortiel]

This is a VERY rare occurrence and you will likely not hear of it again soon. This was Asurion cleaning up their mistake, they notated that they screwed up, and Realestatepro there would not have seen anything like that had they not.

Don't try to do this with Asurion or a store unless it is truly a similar situation to what was stated above, as it will likely end in you getting black-listed from such benefits forever.

Something, however, that you can do for Warranty replacements (not insurance) is get a loaner from a store while your replacement is shipped out. We are trying to get all of our direct retail locations to start carrying them since the change in the warranty shipping policy.

 

[dacp283]

They will do this in emergency situations. My phone got snagged up at the beach while on leave vacation. I went to the nearest vzw store, explained I had an 18 hour drive home and desperately needed a new phone before I left. Took them about 20 min and I had a new phone. It's a would wonderful option and hope people don't abuse it.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[dacp283]

Sorry for all the typos, lol about to fall asleep.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[project.in.process]

Sorry for all the typos, lol about to fall asleep.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

AndroidCentral forgives no one

sincerely, thanks for your service! that's awesome they worked that out for you, too.

 

[racedog]

It's a would wonderful option and hope people don't abuse it.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Are you kidding! Of course people will abuse it. Most people have no thought of anyone else or how their self serving actions will have a negative impact on others. It is a really good thing to have these options available but people abusing them will get them killed off and then people will be screaming about how badly Verizon is treating its customers, when in fact, it is some of the customers who are abusing a good policy that gets it killed off.

This rant doesn't apply to everyone but its amazing to me how much I see in these forums, and other phone forums, of people talking about ways to get around policies, lie to VZW or Assurion to get new phones and generally trying to get stuff for free that they have no right to.

Putting on fire proof suit so fire away!

 

[Forgetful]

I got to agree with some of you guys. This a awesome policy but I really hope that the scavengers don't mess it up for everyone. Honor and self worth are becoming less and less.
Thanks for the info op. Clearly Asuron getting you the replacement was the right thing to do since they messed up I can see how that would be a super useful policy if I was on vacation or a business trip and constantly traveling.

 

[dajogejr]

I think the check/balance might be the store manager calling asurion to make sure, per account, this is authorized.

Otherwise, yeah...cat's out of the bag. If it can be...it will be abused. Which ruins it for everyone.

 

[krept]

To give a little more insight, the insurance company and the Verizon store likely have the latitude to approve such claims on a case by case basis and this will probably not change.

In the first example, since the insurance company certainly understands the concept of liability better than most, they indemnified - made whole - the original poster for their mistake. Had they not screwed up, he would have had his phone. So although his situation may not have been an emergency, it could have turned out badly for the insurance company.

In the beach example, this approaches more being an emergency. Had the store not provided a phone AND something happened on the 18hr drive back (e.g. two flat tires, had to wait hours for someone to stop, call a tow truck etc.) VZW/Assurion may have potential tort, if not contractual liability.

Disclaimer - I'm not a lawyer, but I have adjusted claims up to $7 million for .gov and have seen some crazy stuff. My point is - this is probably the rationale behind the decisions and this service is likely to continue since they are preventing greater potential losses. (I also needed to make a post before I can view links )

cheers

 

[Realestatepro]

Ya I agree im pretty sure that they verified my story with assurion and that this was authorized on my account by the assurion CSR and of course that i wasnt just making up some kind of crazy story to get a new phone...

I honestly think that the fact that they screwed up in the first place and the fact that i was leaving on business for a week that evening were the 2 big factors in my particular situation which allowed them to approve such a claim...

Never the less, I hope this information helps those out in the future that may fall into some sort of an emergency situation and really needs a phone...this information was not posted with the intention of this service being abused in any way if not just to make other out there aware that it does exist in case they are ever in a situation that validates such a claim...

I hope people dont try to abuse because it was honestly a life saver for me last week and truthfully made the monthly insurance premium so worth it for me because had i not had a phone this past week while abroad i would have lost alot of business and not sure if my trip would have gone as smoothly as it did.... plus for those of you who will prob try to make such a claim for no reason..i dont think it will be something that will work very easily unless you have an amazing story and are able to sell it very very very well to the manager or rep helping you in order for them to get the claim approved and even then good luck ...

 

[RkyMtnHigh]

This is a VERY rare occurrence and you will likely not hear of it again soon. This was Asurion cleaning up their mistake, they notated that they screwed up, and Realestatepro there would not have seen anything like that had they not.

Don't try to do this with Asurion or a store unless it is truly a similar situation to what was stated above, as it will likely end in you getting black-listed from such benefits forever.

Something, however, that you can do for Warranty replacements (not insurance) is get a loaner from a store while your replacement is shipped out. We are trying to get all of our direct retail locations to start carrying them since the change in the warranty shipping policy.

Well, in my book, because of their screwup, the OP's case DID qualify as an emergency. I just think now that the info is out, the group that think everything should be free will try to abuse the policy. I doubt that they'll be able to, but I see them trying it. That was the basis of me saying "I see that option going away in a month".

I'm GLAD the OP got resolution on his issue when Asurion screwed up.