Down the Molehill with RolyMo

Cardif Pinnacle.

This is who I have an insurance policy with for redundancy purposes.

Now I have lots of policies and have never had to claim for anything. So I was super dubious as to whether this one would should I need it actually pay out.

Well that time came recently and I had to make the call to see what the process was and to try and take the stress out of my life. From the point of making the call until now all the the staff have been very helpful answering all my questions.

Why wouldn't they I hear you ask?

Well I have worked in an insurance company and I have seen actions that I personally would disagree with that have eventually impacted the policyholder. So understand my nervousness on putting a claim in.

On this occasion everything has been set up, forms filled in, old employer contacted and I now get paid regularly from the insurance company. Great!!! Does what it says on the tin!!

Yes. But Cardif Pinnacle actually did a few things which has prompted me to write this entry.

1. They are flexible and understand that the dates to submit their forms per month might not fall in line with getting the forms signed at the Job Centre plus. So (as always in life) if you communicate with them they are understandable. They also give you a number of days leeway eitherside of the due date for those forms.
2. They SMS you the moment that the funds have left their bank account so you have upto date information (another classic use of good communication) and can rest assured that the money is on its way.
3. Yes its in their interest to get you back to work so they can stop paying you (I want to get back to work too) but they offer a very very good service which I took them up on. It was a seminar on how to look for a job, write a proper CV and expose your yourself in the best way to maximise getting an interview. Best of all it was FREE

On point 3. I was skeptical, the one I attended was at the Pompey FC club. And turned out to be very very useful. My CV/resume rewrite was brillant and the opportunities shot up as a result.

So in the customer services world where companies should be striving for customer advocacy Cardif Pinnacle achieved that and thus this entry to tell you about it.

Now onto the matter of can you get a policy? Have a go. I hear in the UK with the current financial and job climate it might be a more tricky and/or premiums are higher. But I have been very pleased with the service with Cardif Pinnacle.

Well worth it.
Thank you Cardif Pinnacle

R

www.rememberthemilk.com

I'm a big fan of cloud computing applications. This is further compounded by the wish and need to <NOT> have hundreds of apps cluttering up my desktops, the need to have cross platform support, and the ability to access the information anywhere in the world so long as I can get onto the interweb!

Keeping organised is something I try and strive for and the simple todo managers that exist in Outlook or you mobile's equivilent are very flat and unstructured. They dont lend themselves to allowing you to understand what you need to get done next.

Now there are many systems out there to help you get organised. I personally loosely use David Allen "Getting Things Done" blended with the thinking of Stephen R.Covey 7 Habits.... I am not going to preach what is right or wrong. Just the flexibility of RTM to take on your system.

So why RTM?

1. Access
2. Ease of use
3. Flexibile
4. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) look and feel

Access - I personally access RTM from the web, Google's GMail, Google's Calendar and my iPhone. RTM sits in a sidebar in my GMail. It drops the relevant actions into my Google Calendar, I can either access RTM via iPhone Safari or with the RTM application on the iPhone. I even use Twitter to tweet myself RTM actions which automatically added to RTM. I use Tweetdeck interface to do that. Every morning RTM sends me a notification by SMS of my actions for that day.

Ease of Use - It does not require a lot of brain power to get going with RTM, they provide online guides. video's step-by-step tutorials, a very helpful forum and a blog to assist in you getting organised.

Flexible - RTM can cater for most methodolgies or the way YOU want to work. It is platform independant as long as you can get a browser to access the internet you are in.

KISS - Its a lovely clean, simple layout, options are thoughtfully hidden away. Should you want shortcuts they provide them for most functions. At the end of the day any system which is labour intensive to manage and maintain is going to detract from actually getting things done.

Summary

This is a great example of a cloud application that looks simple but is very powerful. There is a free account and a pro account. You can get a lot out of the free account and may not need the pro account for a while.