Stockholm Syndrome

"Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed"

It is now around 5 years that I am with this same auto-insurance company who every year around this time sends their renewal letter and each time bumping up the price by a narrow margin. Maybe in the past I didn't ever notice the difference, or probably it was insignificant increase, but this year they crossed all the limits and without any REASON the premium was increased by a whopping $100! When I called them up the "official" excuse they came up with (cause now I drive more miles to work than past years) didn't even convince the agent...but she was simply passing the information...I cant blame her.

After deciding that it is time to switch to those much advertised companies who claim they can reduce the premium by 20% or more, I got all the paperwork ready and was all set to activate from today ie July 1st. And then it happened. The inevitable. Two weeks back, on a friday evening while searching for a friend's house in an unknown territory, I bumped my car into the curbside and one of the door got significant damage.

Since then everything went so smooth..from calling the insurance company, setting up with the body shopper, driving a rental Pontiac G6 for a week, and getting back the fixed car with a minor deductible and signing off a significant bill (which is more than the annual premimum I pay) to the insurance company and then receiving a letter from them asking me to rate their service.

This morning I renewed my Auto-Insurance with the same company. I am sure it is not their great customer service, it is not my guilt conscience and it is nothing else...but me showing symptom of Stockholm Syndrome!