Best Auto Insurance company?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Not sure if this should be posted here or pitstop, but anyway...

My Santa Fe got totaled... or pending to be totaled. It's been 2 freaking months and I think State Farm is undervaluing the worth of my vehicle by not considering all of its features. KBB or Edmunds are both giving it a range value of $28k certified used to as low as $23k for trade in value. Prior to the crash, I'd say my car is in a pretty good condition so I'd expect a # closer to $28k, but State Farm kept on telling me it's only worth $22k. So naturally I was disputing it with them... and the process is still on going... and I'm not sure when it's going to end. I've been bounced around to bunch of different claims handlers too. Original one disappeared on me to give birth to a baby. 2nd one promised that she do her best to help me fix the report in order to give me higher valuation..., and the she also disappeared and no longer work for the company. Maybe she was fired. So I'm now going at it again with a 3rd claims adjuster..., hopefully this guy will be able to finally help me after nearly 2 months of having my vehicle sitting in the body shop's parking lot... while I'm still making payments to the bank!

Anyway, for sure I'm changing insurance company after this. Our family had been with State Farm for a long time... and never had any issues. I remember my mom ended up totally her Corolla and she was compensated pretty well and it didn't drag on for this long... maybe it's just bad luck on my side. Still..., after this bad taste in my mouth, I just don't want to stay with them anymore.

So do you guys have any recommendations or horror stories to share so I know which to avoid?

Right now I'm thinking of going with AAA.

[thesameguy]

Read this:

http://www.justice.org/docs/TenWorstInsuranceCompanies.pdf

Yeah, it's propaganda, but at least it's statistically valuable propaganda.

That said, there are no good insurers. Every insurance company is a for-profit and the way they make money is by minimizing their payouts. Sadly, the way you keep them in line is by hiring an attorney. Yeah, you can sue your own insurance company - it's often the only way you get fair treatment by them. That's how I managed a fair value from the SPG. You should at least talk with an attorney if you want that $6k. It's typical insurance company tactic to give you the runaround until the statute of limitations runs out and you have no recourse. Talking with an attorney will help you ensure you're protected against that. From what I see here, State Farm is a bunch of bastards, but at least they're not Allstate, so you have that going for you.

My father is a very early AAA customer - he's been with them since they started since in the '60s not a lot of people would insure Alfa Romeos & Porsches. I started with them, but they royally hosed me on a claim in the '90s and I dropped them. The law firm I worked for sued the snot out of them in a class action for defrauding policy holders (improperly collecting deductibles). So, um, yeah. But I recently switched back to them because they had a very competitive multi-policy rate.

Bottom line is I think Corporate America has one goal, and that's sodomizing consumers. There is zero point in having a relationship with any of these assholes. Shop every year, switch as often as makes financial sense. You'll get screwed whenever you have a claim anyway, might as well save money in the mean time.

But, do avoid Allstate, seriously.

[Kchrpm]

Hmmm, I was going to comment on my positive experiences with State Farm. It helps when your agent is a lifelong family friend that comes to your parents house for parties, I guess.

[thesameguy]

Frankly, I doubt it. Your agent is a sales person and has about nothing to do with the claims process. Agents tend to be friendly, they get paid when you sign up. Adjusters get paid when they get you to sign off on a settlement that is less than the valuation of the incident. The methods and metrics that insurance companies use internally to incentivize their adjusters and claims handlers are terrifying.

[Kchrpm]

Oh, well then I've just been lucky, I guess, the two claims I had were quick and did well for me.

[Crazed_Insanity]

TSG, yeah, I found that doc too. But it's funny that I also googled the top 10 good ones as well... and State Farm also made the list! ;) But anyway, at least AAA didn't make the top 10 shitlist.

Like I said, my entire family had been with State Farm since the very beginning and we've never had any problems until now. Our insurance agents are nice and helpful too, but they can't really help out with the claims process. When something goes wrong, all they can do to help is basically call the same #s I'm calling... They have no control or no influence on how fast or fair the claim process is going to be...

I've asked my 3rd adjuster to fix the errors in my valuation report. This is going to be the 6th revision... all previous revisions basically just had date change... while keeping the same errors and then insist my car is worth that lower value...

Law suit is going to be a pain in the ass, and I was counting on a good lawyer buddy of my working for a pretty prestigious firm to represent me..., but unfortunately his freaking firm actually also represent State FARM!!!! ARGH! I must be on a very lucky streak lately... ;)

When I actually sue them, I hope my buddy won't end up handling the case for them! Anyway, really hoping it won't come to that.

You know, it's obvious that there are errors in that valuation report. I have leather seats and the report insist on my vehicle having cloth seats. Also the comps vehicles they use in the report were from Wisconsin and Texas! Like they can't find Santa Fe's in CA?!?!? So I can't believe they really have a chance winning a legal battle. I've already given them the ultimatum to resolve this by end of the week or I'll take legal actions. Hopefully they get the message and quit playing dumb and pay me fair market value...

[thesameguy]

I'd just be straight with them - tell them you're trying to make it easy, but if they can't provide a reasonable value you are going to pursue legal action. That may be enough to get someone's attention. $6k is not a huge amount of money - they obviously aren't going to give up without a fight, but they probably won't want to risk attorneys fees or arbitration/litigation costs to save that money.

The issue that you will run into is that lacking any injuries the value of your claim is going to be low and a) you won't get a huge amount of effort from an attorney and b) you may end up not winning anything after said attorney takes his cut (~25% of the settlement)... of course any attorney you talk to - and that first talk will certainly be free - will tell you this, too. Maybe with some other free advice about your situation.

Certainly don't be afraid to push them hard and tie up their resources and make threats. Ain't nothing wrong with hush money. :)

[Crazed_Insanity]

They finally fixed the errors in the report, but refuse to accept the CA comps I pulled from Autotrader.com.

Anyway, so now it's valued at $25k. Not a great price, but at least more reasonable for it falls within the range of what KBB claims... I'm accepting this just to move on and get the hell away from them.

Getting ready to buy another Santa Fe! :)

[21Kid]

Erie.

[Crazed_Insanity]

State Farm's incompetence is amazing. Thought everything was settled..., but luckily I called my lender just to be sure... as it turned out, SF had not send them the payoff check still. So I call SF to ask them what's the hold up? I'm still on the hook to make a payment to a vehicle that's in SF's possession you know?

And the check processing lady was like... hmm, I don't know. I don't see any reason for holding the payoff check. So she immediately overnite it to my lender. :rolleyes:

So if I don't make a call to ask what's up, they're just going to sit on it and pretend nothing happened?

Unbelievable.

Anyway, if any of you guys experience similar things, I found out that other than threatening law suits, filing a complaint thru CA dept of insurance turned out to be pretty effective. Website does say that it can only help prior to filing a suit. So that's what I did earlier... and then about a week after I filed a complaint, they sent me a letter saying that they'll be looking into my claim... and then around a week after than, some manager from State Farm called and asked how I'm doing...

So I let her have it... detailing everything that was wrong from beginning to end... and telling her I've had enough of State Farm.

I didn't get an apology letter from them or anything, but at least I think she managed to somehow give me extra $2000 back... so now I'm closer to the higher market value shown on kbb or edmunds.

So complaining to the actually insurance company really didn't help. Need to at least file an official complaint on a government website in order to really get their attention. Didn't realize State Government can be that effective. ;)

Hopefully AAA won't give me troubles down the road. I'm really sick and tired of dealing with insurance issues...

[thesameguy]

I had the same experience with the Department of Insurance. Ameriprise was dicking around, so I filled out that form. I got an acknowledgement letter about a week later, then a letter from Ameriprise within days, and a call from a higher up hours after that.

If insurers hold up millions of dollars worth of checks for just days annually, they make big extra money on interest. I see that at work a lot, where they spell names wrong or put an "and" where there should be an "or" in the payee line, or magically send them to the wrong address. Maybe it's innocent, but I can't see how. They mail out bills and collect deductibles reliably enough. It's just wrong, but it's what they do.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, I thought perhaps the check got lost in the mail or perhaps some sort of spelling errors happened.., but nope. Nothing happened. This way it saves them a bit on the postage? Don't know what they were thinking...

Anyway, didn't realize dept of insurance is that effective. I thought I'd just put down my complaint and it'll just be sitting around as one of many and only until the pile gets high enough that they'll eventually investigate this fully..., but I guess it didn't take long for something to happen. Glad I did it. :)