Today, I received this email from GEICO:
Attached is correspondence regarding your claim: 0312851310101112.
For your privacy and security please log into http://www.geico.com/claims/etrack/, select your claim, and ‘Contact Us’ if you would like to respond to this email. Please do not select the ‘Reply’ option on this email.
If you are unable to open the attachment please go to this site and download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, http://www.adobe.com.
If you would like to provide feedback regarding our email process, please visit: http://webeffective.keynote.com/v.asp?inv=ClmsLtrEml
I have some feedback. First, I’m glad you are using email. Let’s take it to the next level and allow all of your adjusters to have at least some discussions about the case by email. It would save both of us a ton of time.
Second, is there any chance you could tell me what the case is when you send me one of these emails? Believe it or not, we don’t use GEICO claims numbers to sort our cases because we have non-GEICO cases as well. (I know, crazy!) Also, who are you? These email are never signed by or come from a GEICO adjuster.
Finally, how did you get my email address? I never gave it to you. One day, about a year ago I guess, they just started coming. I’m not mad about it. But it is odd.
(Fun Fact: I’m reading listening to the audio book The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. Buffett loved GEICO as early as 1943, long before he made it big. GEICO’s premise was that, since it was hard to rate drivers because they didn’t have the data on drivers they do today, it would sell insurance only to government employees. Because these drivers had already been vetted by the government and were more stable, these drivers were less likely to have a car accident. The lesson, as always, is that Warren Buffett, notwithstanding his ownership of the Evil Empire of GEICO, is the man.