Insurance companies can be difficult to deal with, especially considering you only really need them during an already difficult situation.

In today’s story, a daughter shares how her mom made her insurance company regret trying to give her extra stress after a house fire.

Let’s read the whole story.

Won’t cancel the service plan? I’d like to file a claim, please.

My parents had a house fire recently (no fault of theirs) and while the house didn’t burn to the ground (this is important for later) it is basically a total loss due to heat, smoke and structural damage.

They have great replacement insurance.

While the long wait for restoration and replacement will be frustrating, they are in as good of a situation as one could hope for.

They also have one of those monthly appliance service plans.

If any covered appliance isn’t working properly, the service company sends someone out to troubleshoot, repair, and if it can’t be repaired, replaced.

My parents have the total coverage plan including everything from kitchen to laundry to the freezer chest and mudroom fridge.

But now this monthly plan wouldn’t make sense.

Since the house is uninhabitable, they called to cancel the service and ask about prorating this month.

My mom explains the situation and the rep on the phone says sorry.

Apparently, they can’t prorate this month nor can they cancel the service for the next payment cycle, even though they are in the middle of this payment cycle.

Basically, it will be 45 more days of paying for coverage.

My mom states that they are dealing with the stress of a house fire and living in short-term housing.

She tried reasoning with them, but they wouldn’t listen.

“I understand you can’t prorate this month, but can you at least cancel the service for next month based on our situation?”

The rep says “Well, I’m HAPPY to cancel the service effective today if that’s what you really want, but you will still have to PAY for this month and next month.”

I can tell you from personal experience its a bad idea to get cute with my mom.

My mom says “Ok, NO. We aren’t going to cancel a service we still have to pay for. Please keep the service in place.”

They had it coming.

“Instead, I’d like to file a claim on all of our appliances.”

There is a pause, and the rep says “You can’t do that on appliances destroyed by fire.”

My mom says “Oh, no. The house was damaged, but the appliances weren’t destroyed.”

“Since this plan is effective through next month, please start a claim to send a service rep out to the house for ALL of our covered appliances and do any repairs or replacements as needed.”

There is another pause, and the rep asks her to hold.

Funny how he just needed to go for a walk to clear his mind.

A few minutes later, a supervisor gets on the line and says that due to the circumstances, they are happy to make an exception to cancel coverage early if she would like.

“Yes, thank you.”

It wasn’t their problem until it was their problem.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

It’s refreshing to see.

She’s a genius.

She handled it very well.

Another idea.

It was a win!

I bet they talked about that call all day.

Exactly.

They got mom’d.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.