"In 2013, my dad passed away while my brother and I were on our own independent international adventures. I was in Spain and my brother was in Canada and we needed to get back to Australia. My travel insurance was dodgy but eventually paid out after a few complaints – which is pretty standard practice."
"My brother tried to claim $9k. He could only get one emergency seat on a bunch of connecting flights and with that and his flight back after the funeral etc, and other cancellations, it all added up. Shock horror, his claim was rejected. Back then, there wasn’t an industry body that dealt with travel insurance companies or if there was, we had no idea what it was."
"So my bro went through the usual hurdles involved with the appeals and complaints process. Eventually they told him that his claim for $9,326.00 was rejected and their determination was final."
"So, back then companies didn’t really have Twitter handles, especially not insurance companies. So my bro, ever the troll, created a Twitter handle in this insurance company’s name, complete with their official logo. He quickly set about gaining thousands of followers and legitimately began answering their questions with truthful albeit, quite negative responses. Things like:"
"Q- my daughter and I want to travel to Paris. What insurance cover would you recommend?
A- we would recommend you take the premium for our comprehensive cover and burn it. We don’t like to pay out on for any insurable event because it upsets our shareholders. Have fun in Paris. Etc etc"
"The insurance company got wind of this and sent him a cease and desist letter. My brother counter-offered with a contract for the company to purchase the Twitter account (and 2500 potential customers) for the very reasonable price of $9,326.
They agreed."
Snittle23
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