I've had nothing but good experiences dealing with my home and auto insurance companies, though I've not had either my house or my car completely totaled.

I loved having my car totaled. I was able to sit on it for a few weeks because I was borrowing another family member's unused vehicle. There was some dickering involved because they wanted to pay low-end blue book, but I found a comparable vehicle on craigslist and got another $1000 out of them. About 2-3 days after I agreed on the value, I got a check in the mail.

If my house was totaled it would not be so fun.

This is kind of standard though, same for health insurance.

If you're only making small claims that are easily covered by your own premiums, there tends to be no problems and good customer service.

It's when the reason for having the insurance in the first place (catastrophic losses or unaffordable bills) happen that the insurance companies stop being your friend.

Eh, I've had damage to my house due to a tree falling during an extremely unusually windy storm that easily ate up a few years worth of premiums.

The insurance company came out, took some pictures, and cut me a check as soon as I had a few quotes on cost to repair the damage.

Due to the size of the claim, however, they were required to put both my name and the bank that held the mortgage on the check, and they were a royal pain in the ass to deal with. I ended up paying the contractors out of pocket to keep them working while the bank and I played paperwork tag through the mail just to get them to sign the damned check.

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with my insurance carrier (USAA) and nothing but outrageously poor experiences with other insurance companies of at-fault drivers.

> They don’t just profit by volume and are, ultimately, a very boring industry?

In my experience this is the case in America.

I've had longer delays in the UK. My car was damaged by another driver. I sent my dash cam recording to my insurer and then both insurers dithered for months until I threatened to get the government ombudsman involved.

If you want to experience almost every negative emotion, look into hurricane insurance practices, procedures, and results in Florida.