Have you recently experienced companies with system problems?

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Aug 22, 2009
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Pittsburgh,PA U.S.A.
Hi everyone. Have any of you experienced problems recently with any companies being unable to conduct normal business in the United States because that company says their computer system has been down for an unusually long time?

I had some house damage from a major storm on April 29, 2025. During repair a contractor found additiinal damage the storm did that the insurance companies estimator missed and that contractor documented that additional damage and I submitted it for additional cost coverage. Monday June the 9th the insurance company ( Erie ) said their system is down. I have been phoning them twice every week, and today is Thursday June 26, and they still say their system is down, and again give me the " we hope to have it back up Monday next week " line.


It seams almost unbelievable that such a large insurance company could have computer problems that long. I would think any business that big would have redundancy backup.

I don't have inside information about what's really going on and what happened.

I'm thinking that MAYBE ransomware got into their system and remained undetected long enough before infecting also all backup systems. OR, this insurance company has a cash flow problem with all the storm damage that happened this year.

Again, I really don't have any hard data. All I am saying is speculation about why this insurance companies system will have been down 3 weeks next Monday.

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So, I was wondering if other companies within the US are reporting similar " system " problems RECENTLY?

And if so, what companies have you seen this with recently?

And how long has their system been having a problem?

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I ask this because I'm wondering if such problems are occurring in large numbers?

And if they are, what is the cause? Such as maybe an unusually large number of cyber attacks being successful recently.
 
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Now and then, yes.
It does happen since everything is hackable and subject to ransomware attacks.
In your case, it could be that the insurer is attempting to manage a cashflow problem by attributing slow claims payouts to a systems issue, but they are almost always reinsured for losses beyond a certain level.
Who knows?
 
I highly doubt Erie is having financial difficulties…they are on of the most conservative insurance companies.
 
I had an issue with AT&T last year where their portal claimed my bill was overdue even though it wasn't due for 2 days *and* the check showed as having posted to the checking account the day prior. Finally got through to a human who apparently had access to another system to check and he verified that my account was current. Never did find out if it was a hack or just poor programming, but he did admit that there was a known issue with the customer-facing portal.
 
Ransomware/data breach. that's not fun nor fast to deal with on their end unfortunately.
 
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My wife works for a county school district (5 schools over a large geographic area) and their payroll portal went down. They could get paid but had no access to pay stubs, W2's etc unless requested by email. Took them over 6 months to get it fixed.
 
I was stuck at RDU last Friday, and missed an event my kids were doing, because American Airlines had a computer issue.

Can’t get that time back.
 
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