Or in my case, read the actual escrow analysis!

The saga that I related a few days ago is actually much more convoluted than I first realized. And my mortgage company, Wells Fargo, is actually both less and more to blame than I had originally thought.

And on second thought, perhaps it’s best that I didn’t read the escrow analysis, because if I had, I might very well have gone through the roof, figuratively speaking, of course.

But a phone call to my insurance agent who in turn called Nationwide, who is not on your side nor on my side regardless of what their ads used to say, and a further call on my part to my mortgage company (Wells Fargo [sound of horse whinnying]), and I think I have everything cleared up.

Or it will be, once all the funds finish criss-crossing their way around the financial sector. And the mortgage company does a new escrow analysis, which the woman on the phone promised me they would do within a week.

So here’s what happened:

The insurance company, Nationwide, increased my annual premium, for no good reason, by something like $600; I don’t have the exact figure in front of me. They sent that bill to the mortgage company and they sent the information to my agent, etc., etc.

That’s when my agent called me several weeks ago but didn’t tell me how much the increase was, and I assumed it was on the order of 30 or 50 bucks like it has been in previous years, so I didn’t pay much attention. I merely told her that I hadn’t done anything in the past year that should cause the premium to change one way or the other.

So she did her thing and got in touch with the insurance company and they got into a huddle (I presume) to hash things out.

Meanwhile, my mortgage company paid the insurance bill.

Based on my insurance agent’s huddling with the insurance company (or whatever it was they did), the insurance company, Nationwide, issued a revised premium which was something like 540 bucks less than the original premium, and they sent that bill to the mortgage company.

The mortgage company (Wells Fargo), which is presumably under the control of AI, issued a second check to the insurance company.

Then the mortgage company (Wells Fargo) did an escrow analysis and discovered that there was a shortage (no shit, Sherlock!) and sent me the analysis along with a letter to the effect that I could either send them a lump sum of $3000 right away or I’d have to pay a larger monthly escrow bill for the next year. That larger bill effectively wiping out my increased Social Security income.

I did not bother examining the entire escrow analysis; I just noticed the initial insurance premium that was roughly $500 more than last year’s premium, and I jumped to the conclusion that that was the basis for the increased escrow monthly payment. That’s when I wrote up the blog post the other day.

Had I examined the escrow analysis carefully, I would have noticed this— 

—and I probably would have really freaked out.

Anyway, I received email from the insurance company, Nationwide, to let me know that they had $2745.80 waiting for me as a refund, and I could claim it any time.

That’s when I called my agent, and she worked out what had happened, and I managed to claim the refund and let the mortgage company know that I’d be sending it on to them shortly.

I guess the moral of the story is that if I had read the escrow analysis carefully, I would have freaked out and as it arrived on Friday, I would have had the whole weekend to fume. As it was I was only annoyed, not freaked, for the weekend, as I thought I was dealing with a $500 increase, not a $2700 overcharge.

And the further moral is that this has been at most a minor annoyance for me. Thousands, or even millions, of people are having a much worse time because of what the current administration is doing, so I really shouldn’t be complaining. At least not too loudly.