No you don't.
There is the problem. You are allowing way too long between contacts with them and need also to be more assertive.
Yes. When you contact the claims department/ call centre/whatever, immediately escalate. Ask for the name of the agent's supervisor. Speak to them and then insist on speaking to their manager. By that time you may be speaking to a sentient being if you are lucky. Note all the names and ask for direct phone numbers and when they will be in the office.
Then explain the problem and ask what they are going to do and most importantly by when. Solicit a commitment, ask them to confirm that they are empowered to deliver on it and agree the timescale for action. Tie it down. If it is that an appointment is to be made for someone to visit, then get that agreed, or failing that a commitment that the person will contact you and the time (or you call them at the time). Keep it on a tight rein. Don't allow the timescale for responses be days, make it a maximum of one day. Put them under pressure. This has several effects. It conveys a sense of urgency, a desire on the person's part to get the matter resolved so that the PITA customer doesn't keep calling, and it keeps it in their short term memory so that you don't have to tell the whole story each time.
If you can't get time commitments from the person you are speaking to, or they don't meet their commitment, ask to speak to their manager or to the person responsible for actually delivering on the commitment. You can also initiate a complaint through their internal procedure and ultimately take it to the Insurance Ombudsman, but that won't be fast. I would also note times and content of phone calls, and if this lasts into next week, write a letter to their CEO listing the calls, the lack of response and send it by Special Delivery so that they can't claim not to have received it.
The key think is to keep up the pressure and with much more regular calls. Certainly *never* accept responses like you will have to wait for them or that there are thousands of other customers, etc. etc. Those are not valid arguments. The customer should not have to wait. Either they are lazy, or they are understaffed or they have a procedure problem. All of these are within their ability to address so they own the problem.
There's no need to be aggressive about any of this. You can be very assertive by agreeing tight timescales with the person you are speaking to, getting their agreement to them. Keeping the pressure at a level that it is uncomfortable for them will encourage them to get the matter resolved quickly so that they don't have to keep getting these regular phone calls.
Too often people in these places are used to things running at their pace and most customers sit back and let them do it. You can decide to let them dictate the pace if you are more comfortable with that, but then you can't really complain about their inactivity.
Try it. I think you may be surprised with the results.
KInd of coincidentally, I've been having dealings with the motor and motor insurance industry this week. To begin with, I have to say that I have no interest at all in cars in terms of their aesthetics, mechanics, repairing them or anything else. They are a means of transport and something to carry things in and nothing more as far as I am concerned.
This week I have been dealing with the MOT, insurance and tax disc for my wife's car. To me, this is all a big PITA to begin with because it is time consuming and dealing largely with bureaucratic crap for no valuable reason. The MOT is fair enough - I found a local place that does them plus repairs and although the car failed on the first test, the faults were not major and a new exhaust component and a headlight adjustment resolved it. Two visits, hour and a half in total and around £100 spent. Not unreasonable.
I then decided that I would like to renew the tax disc on line in order to save the time taken to go to the town centre, park, go to the post office and so on - an exercise that takes a minimum of an hour and a half as well because of the queues in the post office and everybody doing what have been made to be complex transactions for no good reason other than paper pushing.
The basics on the renewal web site came up OK, but the process failed at the insurance checking stage. I called DVLA and they said that the Motor Insurers Database didn't have details of insurance that would be valid on Dec 1st. (new date). The existing insurance expires on the 26th but had been set up to automatically renew.
So I called the insurer and was told that it wasn't their policy to enter the details into the database until they had taken payment on the renewal date or within 14 days after that. Sorry, not acceptable. After a couple of people I got through to a manager who committed to getting the details entered manually on the next working day (last Monday). Tried the renewal on Tuesday. Still didn't work, so I called him back. Oh well, it should have done..... I explained to him that I needed this to be done and wanted a call back to confirm in the afternoon. To his credit, he did call, but then said that it was all down to his IT department and "the computer". I explained that I would allow a further 24hrs and if it wasn't all in place then I would be initiating complaints and they would lose the business.
The application was still not working, so I called DVLA again who confirmed that they could not get details on the new insurance from the database, only the old one. I did try contacting the organisation running the motor insurers database. Onanists par excellence it seems. They wanted me to download a form, fill it in and send it to them with a £10 cheque and then it would take 14 days. I don't want to do any of those things. The data wouldn't be useful in 14 days.
In the meantime I found the first internet site that came up using Google that goes and pokes the web sites of 50 insurers and gets quotes. It was one set of form filling which wasn't too bad. Previously I have visited the various on line insurers and tried a few. The trouble is that it's at least ten minutes on each filling in the rigmarole and I have neither the time nor enthusiasm to do it. Hence the previous insurance has been self renewing for the last couple of years.
The results of the exercise were surprising. I found that most of the insurers were less expensive than the existing one and there were 4-5 who were close to half the price of the incumbent (who had been the cheapest at the time). I found a policy underwritten by Axa (so no Mickey Mouse) and completed the application on line in 5 minutes. The policy terms are better than the existing as well. Added to this, the certificate and all documents appeared as PDFs which I could download and print myself. Done. No titting about with call centres, cheques and all the rest of it.
I did talk to the incumbent insurer again because I will still be initiating a complaint. Either somebody is lying or they are incompetent or there is a broken process. They wanted the certificate back in order to cancel the insurance. I asked them when they proposed to come to collect it since I had wasted too much time with them. A stamped envelope is coming my way. The direct debit is cancelled, so they can't collect the money anyway. The satisfaction came in speaking to the guy at the incumbent one last time and explaining all of this. When I told him about the premium of the new insurer, he went very quiet. Then he wanted to know who it was. I asked why and he said that he needed to renew his insurance soon.
In the end, I did go to the post office, choosing a quiet time. I decided to renew the tax disc for 6 months and then revert to 12 monthly intervals. While this costs a little more, it does mean that there won't be about to expire insurance or MOT so the on line thing should work. Plus it spreads the costs.
So I am afraid that I am not pleased with the motor industry and all to do with it this week. There is a lot of scope for improvement.
It looks like you are being, and by a dog as well.... ;-)