State Farm and my $0.02

dixiegypsy31

New member
I responded to another old post about State Farm, but felt the need to share here as my own PSA. Take from it what you will (it IS, after all, only worth $0.02 and I’m only one of I’m sure thousands of people who interface w/ them. If you have a positive experience with them, feel free to offer a counter-view):

…as someone who works in the construction industry and deals with insurance companies for insurance claims on damaged homes….. if I had my way, I’d encourage people to consider an alternative. As soon as I hear that a prospective client is with State Farm, my heart falls. For sake of length of post, and client privacy, i won’t go into a list of offenses. But the most recent issue arose today: back in May, after some back and forth with estimates from SF and our firm, our client got approved to have a structure rebuilt after a fire at an agreed-upon amount. Now, mid-way through construction, the claim adjuster has been changed and the client’s insurance agent is just informed the client that SF is only going to cover a portion of what was originally approved. The difference in cost to the customer is around $20K. This is only one example of many I’ve experienced as a professional having to liaise between them and their paying customers.

And my own PERSONAL experience with them, as someone previously insured by them, was terrible as well. Back in my early 20’s (so, mid/late 90’s) I had car insurance through them. I had the car for about a year, but it was a beater and eventually died hard enough to be beyond repair. I became a bus rider because I couldn’t afford to buy a new car, and I called State Farm to cancel my insurance/inform them the car had been transferred to a salvage company. Fast forward down the road about a year: I find out State Farm reported me to the police/motor vehicle department as an uninsured motorist and that the department had revoked my license. I only found out because I was trying to renew my driver’s license and the motor vehicle dept rep told me they couldn’t because “my insurance company had reported me for driving without insurance” (or something along the lines of cancelling my policy while still owning/operating a vehicle) and a warrant had been issued against me.

I had to jump through hoops to prove I wasn’t driving during that time and to get my license reinstated. Meanwhile, when I contacted State Farm, they had the nerve to argue with me that I SHOULD HAVE KEPT PAYING CAR INSURANCE ON A CAR I DIDN’T OWN, and that it was basically my fault for not maintaining insurance. Wtf? You are NOT legally required to carry car insurance if you don’t own a vehicle.

Needless to say that left a VERY bad taste in my mouth and I swore from that point I’d never do business with them again. All the negative interactions I’ve had with them since then in my industry have only reinforced my opinion of them.

Again, take from my experiences what you will. And if you have had positive experience with them, I welcome any happy-ending stories to help temper my jaded heart, lol.
 
@dixiegypsy31 Sounds like the salvage company didn’t properly fill out the transfer paperwork

It wouldn’t have created an issue if they cancelled/transferred your registration correctly because when your insurer transmitted “we no longer insure this vehicle” to the DMV, there’s no issue since you no longer own the vehicle
 
@mjb048 This. The insurance company didn't report you as "driving without a license." They simply reported you no longer have insurance, and whatever process you did to transfer ownership of the car to someone else got screwed up. But it's easier to blame insurance than yourself.
 
@bdmulneaux I acknowledge it hadn’t occurred to me that that may have been the issue.

Despite my making that allowance for error on my, or the salvage company’s part, however my SF rep at the time was insistent that any individual of driving age, whether they owned a vehicle or not, was required to have auto insurance and that I needed to reinstate my policy with them. So they still don’t come out of this squeaky clean in my eyes. That was wrong.
 
@dixiegypsy31 if you were told that, then absolutely yes, they were wrong. However they may have been trying to discuss a non-owned policy and just handling it poorly.

If you do find yourself without a vehicle again this is usually a good idea since it will give you continuous coverage when you do purchase down the road which heavily impacts rates, as well as give you protection if you rent/borrow a vehicle during that time.
 
@bdmulneaux THIS totally makes sense. And another kind user on here pointed out the same thing (about the non-owner policy). I guess at the time I just didn’t understand what was going on. I really appreciate you taking the time to share and offer guidance! It def helps me not feel quite so disappointed in SF (just a little more disappointed in myself, lol).
 
@dixiegypsy31 No worries. Insurance can be very confusing, and unfortunately a lot of people in the industry forget that and act like it's all common stuff everyone knows. We get it, and that's why a lot of us are here to help.
 
@dixiegypsy31 We had start farm in the 90's, and they insisted they insure the person and not the car when you buy auto insurance, that too left a sour taste. Then they screwed us over my sisters accident (not her fault, a BMW owner crashed into her damaging her knees for life). We all switched to Allstate, been with them since.

I was left with the impression that SF insurance agents say what ever they can to get your money.

That being said, I'm considering having them and amfam quote me on everything as a comparison to my outrageous allstate rates. I'm hoping the agents are a little more honest this time.
 
@mjb048 Ahhhh, great observation. That hadn’t occurred to me.

That allowance being made, I still have issue with my SF rep at the time insisting that people who don’t own vehicles, but are of driving age, should be paying for car insurance. In that respect, the SF rep was totally in the wrong.
 
@dixiegypsy31 I was actually just about to point that out too! It seems like they worded that weird, but I think what they were trying to incinuate is that you should try and continue SOME kind of policy even without a car. Most places call it a non-owners.

The case I see far too often is people sell a car, cancel their policy, call back a month later with a new car, and the rates are double what they were used to paying AND they have to go through the hoops of starting a new policy from scratch. It's time-consuming, and not fun.
 
@srm2888 So, a kind user @mlshelton1975 made some very helpful observations to help me see WHY SF may have taken the direction that they did. Their insight helps it make sense (and helps me not feel quite so indignant about it!) They basically pointed out that I likely didn’t deal with my car plates or registration properly when I had the car salvaged, and so that set a course of events that led to SF wanting me to have a non-owner policy (because they thought I still owned the car).

So, I’m eating humble pie and understand now I blew it. I was young and unknowledgeable and I blew it. Like I told that user, this revelation at least helps assuage some of my unpleasant feelings toward SF.
 
@dixiegypsy31 Ah gotcha, it's all good! At the end of the day i'm sure it was still a pain jumping through all the hoops and paperwork to get your liscense situation resolved. But those sort of topics are not really common knowledge so hindsight is always going to be 20/20!
 
@srm2888 Right? I was like 21, living in L.A. on my own in the early/mid-90’s. So, getting info from the internet wasn’t a thing, and if you don’t know what you don’t know you’re certainly not going to know what questions to ask {shrug} lol, amazing we survived! Glad the folks in this group are willing to explain how things worked so I could get some closure!
 
@dixiegypsy31
So, I’m eating humble pie and understand now I blew it. I was young and unknowledgeable and I blew it.

If that's the worst case of blowing it you've done, then you're good. You're actually way ahead of me. I've fucked up far worse and at a much older age than you.
 
@dixiegypsy31 I think, as with any large company your experience is going to vary based on the actual people handling your claim/policy.

I was in a hit and run with my truck and state farm covered everything and didn't even blink when I asked for OEM parts. Paid they shop and like three supplements no problem. Now I was using their preferred vendor.

I've never experienced their property claims but I'm a property adjuster. I will say I inherit claims from peers that quit or get promoted and sometimes I'm appalled at how the claims were handled and more often than not I'm scrambling to fix the claim and take care of the customer. I do not work for state farm but if my own company and people on my own team can royally screw up claims handling then I would imagine adjusters and teams at state farm could as well.
 
@dixiegypsy31
Now, mid-way through construction, the claim adjuster has been changed and the client’s insurance agent is just informed the client that SF is only going to cover a portion of what was originally approved.

Was the homeowner issued a new claim payment letter/estimate with lower numbers? Claims aren't just handled willy nilly. Every payment and estimate is memorialized in writing.

If the customer or contractor THOUGHT something would be covered but it wasn't approved, then that's a different story.
 
@bfastpool The claim process was started back in April. SF rep submitted an initial itemized claim report/letter that their client then shared with us. We ran the estimate through Xactimate and, with photo documentation, captured additional items initially overlooked by the adjuster. We submitted our estimate for review. SF responded with an updated increased claim letter that included/addressed the majority of the various items we accounted for that they’d overlooked (fasteners, fascia and discovery that the fire caused cracking of the old foundation). The claim letter included statement of compensation.

I am open to plausible explanations as to why this happened. In this case, it almost seems like the original adjuster left, didn’t document the updated claim letter, and now everything is being questioned. They are having us send a copy of said letter to them, along with our estimate.

I am only on the receiving end of insurance company decisions, so I own I don’t know a lot about all that goes into making these decisions. That having been said, we’ve had more disheartening interactions (for us and/or for the client) w/ SF than with other insurance companies, so overall I’m just not impressed with their modus operandi.
 

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