State Farm needs to get a better excuse - State Farm Group - Auto
20 June 2008*STATE FARM* - State Farm Group - Auto The State Farm insurance policy which I had was very good. I had a 2000 Volkswagon Jetta. I am 18 years old and ...
Sell the "State Farm" - State Farm Group - Auto I have been with state farm for over 15 years and never claimed an auto accident. But recently my home was damage...
My husband and I didn’t have a very nice experience with State Farm auto Insurance. My husband and I had been recently married back in 2002, and we were looking to change insurance companies, a few friends of ours had highly recommended State Farm Auto Insurance. So, we went online and did some research. First let me tell you a little bit about my husband and myself.
The Drivers and their vehicles
My husband was 24 years old at this time. He is in the military. He had 1 speeding ticket from a few years previous. He has a very bad credit rating. His car is a 1986 Toyota MR2 (a sports car).
My husband had been away with the military for 6 months prior to us contacting State Farm Auto Insurance. His car had been parked in our garage for the time he was away (I can’t drive a stick-shift), and we hadn’t had the him or the vehicle insured for that amount of time because it would have been a waste of money.
I was 20 years old at this time. Working part-time and going to school part-time. I have no tickets, speeding or otherwise. I have an excellent credit rating. The car I was insuring was a 1997 Suzuki X-90 (an SUV).
We applied
We found State Farm Auto insurance online and their website was very easy to navigate and understand. We compared their prices for car insurance with a few other insurance companies. We really liked the price we were quoted online with them ($276 to get started and something like $45 every month). We filled out an online application, very easy to do. We answered all questions pertaining to our driving records, vehicles, personal information, previous insurance companies, etc. . . On the application we said that my husband didn’t have any prior insurance (Due to his being away with the military). We also included his 1 speeding ticket information from several years prior. We entered our credit card number and recieved our confirmation e-mail saying welcome to State Farm Auto Insurance.
The next day we recieved a phone call from a representative saying we needed to come into the office and fill out some paperwork. At that time we confirmed with the representative that everything seemed ok. She told us to bring the military orders (for the 6 months my husband was away) into the office so that copies could be made. We were told it wouldn’t be a problem at all. The representative on the phone seemed very nice and pleasant.
In the office
We get into the office and were greeted by some very nice polite people. We are informed that we are the first people at this branch to apply using the new online application.
We sign the proper paperwork, hand over a copy of the military orders, and go over our previous driving records again. My husband tells her about his speeding ticket from a few years before, she makes a note of it. She tells us we are done and that everything looks good. We should recieve our insurance cards in the mail in 7 - 10 days. We tell the representative that we are in the process of moving, but we give her an address (my mother’s address) to send any paperwork to. she writes it down and says no problem.
Up to this point this whole process has been very polite, easy and nice.
It all changes after that.
2 weeks later
We get to our new house (3000 miles away from our previous house… from WA state to FL). We get our mail. In our mail is a letter from State Farm Insurance, the first thing we notice was that this envelope has several forwarding stickers on it. After peeling 2 of them off, we realize that they never sent anything to the address we had given them before leaving (my mothers house), they had sent everything to our old house, where it was forwarded to my mother’s house, where it was forwarded again to our new house in FL. This whole forwarding process took the mail an extra 7 days to reach us. We open it up and get a HUGE shock.
It’s a letter saying that because my husband lied on his application and didn’t disclose his speeding ticket from a few years before they were discontinuing our insurance. The letter also said that because my husband wasn’t insured for 30 days consecutively prior to the date we applied for insurance, they couldn’t insure him. They are cancelling our insurance on midnight in 5 days. We look at the calendar and the date the letter was sent/written. The day the insurance was cancelled we were somewhere in transit from WA state to FL. We didn’t know we were driving un-insured halfway here.
We pick up the phone and call them. We explain that Yes, we did tell them about that ticket, not once, but twice. They call us liars.
We explain, again, that my husband wasn’t insured previously because he was away with the military. We tell them that We gave the representative his orders and she made copies of them. We were told twice that it shouldn’t be a problem and it was okay. The person we are talking to says, So what.
We ask what it will take to get this resolved and get our insurance activated again. This is were the ugly got uglier.
“I’m sorry you don’t seem to understand me. You lied to us so we can’t insure you at all. Because you haven’t had insurance, you are too big of a liability. We can’t insure you at all.”
“Fine, just send me a refund and i’ll take my business elsewhere.”
“You do realize that you HAVE to have insurance don’t you?”
“Uh, well, YES. But, you are refusing to insure us, so I don’t have much of a choice than to take my business elsewhere.”
“Fine. Have a nice day.”
The bottom Line
State Farm didn’t seem very organized. Didn’t seem to care about the client. Didn’t seem very military friendly. It seems as though they have Very high standards that are impossible to live up to.
Also, I mentioned earlier about our credit rating. I mentioned this because on the back of one of the letters we recieved from State Farm it stated “Our decision was made in part by the information recieved from “Equifax” credit reporting agency. This may mean that because my husband had very poor credit, they decided to cancel his insurance and just used the ticket and the lack of previous insurance as an excuse.
So whether they just used his credit rating as an excuse, or if they really didn’t know what was going on between the office people and the phone people - either way it was ver frustrating.
I didn’t like the way we were treated by the State Farm people after the initial meetings. I felt like we were being treated as criminals.
State Farm insurance Does offer some very good deals, but I don’t think you should have to deal with abuse by your insurance company just to get a good deal.
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