Bureaucracy is alive and well

You can tell things are slowing down up here since I'm posting two days after my last post.  No more holiday stresses. We're all undecorated.

But hear this about my Florida house insurance policy.

  I know that my Florida house insurance has been due on 1/24 of each year since as long as I can remember.  I had changed insurance carriers three years back.  I always paid the bill in full.  But this year it will be hard to do  because it's tripled in the same amount of years. I called the company.  How come? 

 Paul had looked at my policy and listed a couple of items for me to mention.  Bless him.    He was right.  He said my present  policy states it's a wood frame built house. Oops.  It's obviously masonry built.  ( Paul even broke a couple of drills when he was putting in hurricane windows.)  The man, I talked to, said if we could get the policy changed from  wood to concrete, the premium would be cut in half.  Wonderful! What a lot of rigamarole.  I started calling.

 My dear Paul is now in the process of calling many numbers, and talking with many people.  He just got off the phone with one.  Now he's talking with another.   Bureaucracy at it's best (?). It's very frustrating.  He says he's been going around in a circle.

 These computers are great, though.  Through e-mail, they can send any paperwork to us, and we can send it on to others.  This doesn't help with the frustration of trying to get one little item changed - that wasn't our fault.  It was done by one of their people.  I never signed or  we never saw the item about a wood frame built house - except just now when we reviewed it.  Granted, it took three years for us to find it.  We'd never ever  have questioned it, except the premium had gone sky high.

We thought we'd  take a break (yeah, right)  from the frustrations and go to our credit union to see about my debit card which is due to expire in March, when we'd still be in Florida. The gal at the counter called Binghamton, where their their main office is located.   She was put on hold, but when she got through she asked: 

Could they forward the new debit card?  No. (I seem to remember that problem with boxes of checks).  Would they send them if we change our address temporarily to Florida?  No. (I can see their point.)  But we could change our address permanently to Florida.  Then they'd send them there.  And as soon as I got back up north, I should come to the branch office and change my permanent address back.

Has bureaucracy taken over everything we do?

Let's change the subject.

 It's cold up here.  It's even cold in Florida, (but at least it's sunny) - it went below freezing last night down there.  Bill  covered our flowers out back.  After it got dark, and the temperature had really dipped, he played a trick on Epril and asked her to go get the mail.  He said she went two steps out the front door,  and came rushing back in saying "No, no, no, no!"  The temperature in the Philippines never, well almost never, goes much below 70 degrees.

So - how're things in your neck o' the woods?  Freezin'?