Insurance firms proceed to screw over owners of Hyundai and Kia vehicles; either Kia owners are outright being denied coverage—like myself— or they’re finding themselves suddenly dropped from insurance firms that they’ve been customers of for years. That’s what’s happened to at least one Kia owner in Washington state who suddenly found herself without automotive insurance.
NBC’s Washington affiliate KHQ reports that Venessa Russell was a customer of the insurance company Safeco, a division of Liberty Mutual Insurance, for the last five years. That’s until she got a random message from her broker saying Safeco was “”declining the quotes as a consequence of the Kia being on the policy.”
She quickly realized that insurance is, in actual fact, a scam with Russell saying “You pay each month on time, never lapsed, never nothing, and to have them just say thanks for that free money for the last couple of years. Now I’m dropping you.” Her broker informed her she was being dropped as a consequence of a “trend on social media showing people easy methods to steal and carjack Hyundais and Kias.”
For those of you not accustomed to what that trend is, it began in late 2021 on Tik Tok with a gaggle of thieves called the”Kia Boys.” In a series of videos, the group showed how easy it was to steal various Hyundai/ Kia models sometimes using nothing but a USB. Unfortunately, the trend gained traction and there have been 1000’s of thefts nationwide which led to varied cities threatening to sue Hyundai/Kia over the threats and a messy recall campaign by the automaker to put in immobilizer devices.
Worse yet, models that were never even targeted by thieves have been dropped from insurance for simply being a Hyundai or Kia. Williams drives a 2020 Kia Telluride, a model that has push button start on each trim. Her owning a Telluride did her no favors when she tried to get insurance elsewhere.
Russell says she was denied by all major insurance firms solely as a consequence of the make of her automotive. She added all drivers listed on the insurance have had no accidents and received no tickets within the last twenty years. Her broker was capable of find one smaller company that will insure her Kia, but the price was just too high.
Russell was quoted $7500 a 12 months to insure two cars with three drivers coming out to over $600 a month. That’s a $200 monthly increase from her previous insurance. This extra cost was after dropping a driver and a automotive from the insurance.
Unfortunately, the upper costs weren’t feasible. She did finally find someone to insure her, but she wasn’t capable of bundle her home and auto insurance like she had been doing. KHQ reached out to Safeco for comment and the corporate said they don’t respond publicly on underwriting decisions.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
