ComplaintsforCNS Insurance LLC

• Initial Complaint

  03/24/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We requested the insurance quote and specifically asked for the coverage to be in compliance with ****** requirements. Reply attached. We trusted their expertise and were rejected by ****** because it was not in compliance. We contacted them, and nobody took responsibility for that. The policy was then updated with the right ****** requirements because we had to research and provide that to them when they said they were the experts. ****** rejected our application for the second time and FINAL decision, with no chance of appealing or disputing the rejection, because that's their policy, the reason being misleading information, as the truck listed on this policy is not the right truck. What? ****** is very restrictive with applicants and this rejection resulted in financial loss to us with no ability to start working since the beginning. Apparently, when we sent the truck information for the quote, we messed up two numbers on the VIN number, which I'm sure can happen with anyone, but the year information 2023 and the value of $142K were correct. The agent added a 1993 truck instead. We believe that as our agents, their company should help us and make sure to verify all the information as specialists and as our representatives. Let's agree here that if the year of the truck was 1993, the value of $142K would not be reasonable, so maybe asked us if the information was correct? As an insurance agent, they had fiduciary duty between parties requiring that the agent acts in the best interest of the customer which would mean validating info, checking VIN number, and matching the truck information as a standard of care is established between the two parties that must be maintained, regardless of personal interests and commission to be gained. With that being said, we requested retroactive cancelation as the truck insurance did not correspond to the truck we own and asked them to request Progressive to refund due to an error in due diligence and fiduciary duty.

  Business response

  04/06/2023

  Date: 04-05-2023

  First, I want to clarify that *** *****’s company name is *****, without the second ‘A’ and there is no clerical error. Second, please don’t confuse ‘***** ********* ***’ with ****** *****. The latter, ****** *****, hereafter known as **, is a subsidiary of ******, the giant on-line home delivery merchant most of us have come to rely on in our daily lives. ** secures commercial independent truck owner-operators on a pay-for-hire basis to deliver goods for ****** from point A to point B, including residential delivery. Many individual commercial truckers across the country drive for ****** ***** in some capacity so the program and insurance requirements are widely understood in the commercial trucking and insurance world.
  At CNS Insurance we certainly regret *** *****’s challenges centering on his inability to secure ** approval on a for-hire basis. At CNS Insurance we only provide insurance services to the commercial trucking industry. We have insured thousands of satisfied clients over nearly ten years in Business and we work with hundreds of ** owner-operators every year.
  CNS Insurance did work in good faith with *** ***** but his ‘final decision rejection’ from ** is not a statement of accuracy. ** does not issue final rejection decisions for non-compliant insurance nor does ** limit the number of times insurance can be updated or certificates of insurance (COI) can be submitted for approval. A COI (*******) is a nationally accepted document across all industries which states/summarizes the insurance coverages and limits that the insured purchased along with additional information regarding the insureds insurance policy. ** outsources COI compliance to third party vendors, namely Registry Monitoring Insurance Services (RMIS), and thus, would not necessarily know how many times insurance has been revised. In addition, we have had clients working with ** revise their insurance often and they have never had any problems with **.
  It is true *** *****’s initial insurance policy which he purchased to be effective and start coverage on December 22, 2022 did not meet AR requirements. However, this was in part because *** ***** held himself to be sophisticated in terms of working with AR as he states “we work with ****** for a long time” (Exhibit 1). *** ***** had also emailed our agent the insurance coverage and limits he wanted in his policy and this email did lead to some confusion regarding coverage and limits (Exhibit 2). However, the agent promptly submitted for the correct coverages after *** *****’s request to revise coverage and limits on the policy.
  I would add, VIN and year of manufacturer errors happen often in the world of Insurance. Duplicate VIN’s which back date year of manufacturing can happen in the automated VIN national database. However, this would have had zero impact on an approval decision by **. Approved truck companies that haul for AR are regularly adding trucks, removing trucks, changing VIN’s and drivers for various reasons. Thus, it is not logical that AR would not approve *** ***** solely on the basis of a VIN or year of manufacturing error.
  But for clarity, *** ***** did email our agent the incorrect VIN on or about December 2, 2022 and also signed the policy documents to bind the policy with the incorrect VIN. I can only assume *** ***** submitted a application to ** with the incorrect VIN. However, as licensed agents we are held to a professional level of care…we are not a fiduciary to our clients per the law. Thus, we can only assume the client is sending us the correct information. In addition, regarding the year and value we have many clients with older trucks. Similar to people who love classic cars these truckers pour lots of money into their trucks to fix them up and the values can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Commercial insurance relies on what is called ‘stated value’, not market value as in personal auto insurance. The client can select whatever value they want their truck to be insured for…the only question we ask is ‘what value would you like your truck insured for’…we do not ask ‘why are you selecting that value? We do not police information provided to us as we have to assume the client is looking out for their best interest and providing correct and accurate data. In *** *****’s case, if the VIN pulled from the VIN national data base we would have no reason to go back to *** ***** and ask him to reconfirm the VIN and value. I would finally add, once *** ***** discovered his error it was promptly corrected.
  It is also important to understand that ** has many requirements to become an owner operator…insurance is just one requirement of many. And being sophisticated in working with ** *** ***** understood he may be rejected for reasons other than insurance (Exhibit 3) because in his own words, he was unsure he would be accepted by ** because “they are very restrictive” (Exhibit 1). In this Exhibit it is clear *** ***** already understood his application may fail because of reasons other than insurance (Exhibit 1 and 3). At the same time he was also inquiring as to policy cancellation and getting all money back. Unfortunately, because of Federal Regulations, once his commercial insurance policy is in place and his Motor Carrier Authority (MC Number) is approved to go active by the FMCSA, he cannot cancel the insurance without a 35 day penalty imposed by law. *** ***** understood that at a minimum he would be charged for 35 days of insurance premiums regardless if he were accepted by ** (Exhibit 4).
  I also cannot help but wonder about *** *****’s timeline. *** ***** purchased the insurance on or about December 8, 2022 and to be effective on December 22, 2022 and provide coverage until December 22,2023 (Exhibit 5). However, *** ***** did not request a policy cancellation until on or about March 21, 2023. Thus, *** ***** is claiming it took essentially 90 days for ** to convey to him his company was not eligible because of ‘misleading information’ (Exhibit 6). Additionally, is *** ***** saying that his FMCSA authorized for-hire truck was not generating any income for 90 days? Was this truck sitting in a parking lot? Was *** ***** paying his driver during these 90 days to sit at home? This is all an absurdity. For-hire truckers don’t sit around waiting for one company to approve them for loads. Also, ** consistently provides notice of approval or declination within days of an application being submitted. Remember *** ***** is a sophisticated trucking business owner with a multitude of other trucking companies and has ‘worked with ****** for a long time’ (Exhibit1). *** ***** knows how the system works. He knows how to make money. He would have known about his company rejection from ** within weeks of the policy inception date and thus, would have had the opportunity to cancel the policy much sooner with a significant reduction in insurance premium expense. Additionally, ‘misleading information’ (Exhibit 6) is not insurance non-compliance nor is it a VIN error. Misleading information is mostly associated with company ownership and its history of safety and compliance with the DOT and FMCSA Laws and Regulations. I can only suspect the ‘misleading information’ that AR referenced is somehow related to *** *****’s other trucking companies. In fact, *** ***** has a multitude of other trucking companies associated with an address under his name per the industry leading CAB report. Our experience is that when one owner has many trucking companies associated with their address and or email they are usually trying to hide something. Is this why ** did not approve *** *****’s ***** Logistics application?
  But why didn’t *** ***** cancel his policy sooner? Again, I can only speculate. But another requirement for ** is that the owner operators Federal Motor Carrier ID Number (MC Number) must be active for six months prior to acceptance by **. However, ** *****’s company, ***** ********* *** only had the MC Authority reactivated on December 22, 2022 (Exhibit 7). This means *** *****’s company would not have been eligible for ** until June 22, 2023. Long after he purchased the insurance policy.
  In addition, ** prohibits acceptance into the owner operator program for companies with a plagiarized name, or a name which is substantially similar to that of parent ****** or its affiliates, so that an average person could not distinguish the difference between the entities. Clearly, ***** ********* *** is a poor attempt to align itself and take advantage of the massive success of ****** and create substantial confusion for the average consumer. Could this be the ‘misleading information’ ** is referencing?
  In closing, we asked *** ***** to provide our Agency proof of the ** ‘misleading information’ rejection so that we can substantiate his claim that we are somehow responsible for not being approved for the ** program. But as you might suspect at this point in time he has not provided the ** rejection documentation. We don’t think this is too much to ask *** ***** considering he is asking for all of his premium money to be returned to him since inception of the policy on December 22, 2022.
  Finally, given *** *****’s failure to provide ** ‘misleading information’ rejection documentation we can only speculate his failure to secure ** approval was related to something other than facts related to CNS Insurance as discussed in this statement… MC Authority, use of a plagiarized name, other FMCSA safety and compliance violation/s, multiple chameleon companies in his Cab report…could all be reasons for ** ineligibility and thus, would have been out of the control of CNS Insurance.
  Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

  Customer response

  04/19/2023

  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Answered]
  
   Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  I don't think it is a valid response or a fair resolution. Please see attached explanation and images.
  
  Regards,
  
  *************************
  

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