I agree, this is why I found a local agent to begin with. And yes, absolutely, my situation was one where being able to handle things in person when needed was valuable. And you can believe that I did!

Don't misinterpret "a handful of times" to mean that it was rare. The frequency that I stopped at his office was appropriate for the issues we were trying to work through. Quick updates were phone calls and e-mails, and when discussion and documentation were necessary, it was in person. The difficult part about my situation was that it wasn't my agent who was working the issue much of the time, it was people at AllState Corporate, so even though I continually nagged him, there wasn't much he was able to do personally except pass along my nagging. That didn't keep me from nagging, that just made it less important to be in person when I or he wasn't bringing anything new into the conversations.

As I've said, my agent was good to me, except that I believe he screwed up on my initial quote (which in the end may be the whole crux of the issue). He and I had a good business relationship. As a result, when he repeatedly assured me it would be resolved, I trusted him. Even now, I believe that he really thought it would be resolved.

It just makes me so frustrated that it's become acceptable for the blame to be put on consumers for trusting a business person. If we don't hold corporations accountable for their less-than-ethical behavior, we're basically telling them it's OK to continue screwing us.