What insurance do you use, and do you like them?

Also have State Farm insurance. They have our house and daily drivers. We had a claim with my wife's minivan; hit broadside by a 16 year old kid, the process was not too painful.

 

Hope nobody has been hurt, but I'm still interested in hearing from anyone who has had a major medical claim with State Farm from an auto accident. How did it go?

 

AAA SUCKS.. One of my cars (Lexus) was hit in the rear in Dec 16 2008, they did not look at the car until the first week in Jan 4 2009. AAA would not return calls or emails during that period then cut off the rent car. They then blamed me for the delay. Still no payment for the medical or car damages. Your insurance company is only as good as your last accident. They are all good at taking your premium payments..

Now I am looking for a lawyer to take down AAA.

On my classic cars and Ferrari I use a specialty insurance with agreed values....

 

my wife was hit in the rear by another person who had out of state insurance,we have state farm,will our insurance paid all the bills and got the car fixed and then went after the other dude,we had $500 deductable which we paid a few months later get that back to us in the mail after they collect from the person that hit her and the ins,never changed,I don't know if that helps your ??????

 

That is precisely why I left GEICO. Had used them for years, no claims or accidents but the rates rose every time renewal came around. Switched to SF, been with them ever since. Have all my insurance with them: house, cars, umbrella, flood.

 

Thanks for the detail, Michael. I'm interested in how State Farm handles $100k in a client's hospital bills if it's the client's fault. $5 Grand or something for body and paint is small potatoes. So if your claim was for major medical bills, then yes, that answers my question.

 

no Rick,it was'nt that large of money but I do know that they will stand us and collect after the other people that are the cause,are you asking me as a state farm driver and I was the fault of the accident how they will still handle the claim, if so that would be a very good (?)my daughter a few years back had freinds in the car that she was driving and a animal ran in front of her,she rolled the car and one went to the hospital,car was totaled,they said it was her fault,they said unless it was a horse to just hit it than go off the road,will anyway the kid that went to hospital got a good sittlement to buy a car and told me that insurance was going to go up unless I signed a wavier saying that she will not be driving any of the other vechiles,she had to go somewhere else for ins,the next car that she got,she was 17 at the time,our 16 old daughter just got her drivers liecence and got her a 2009 civic,full coverage $170 a month,so we got another child to worry about,but I still like s.f.

 

Same here: first they give you a low ball quote, then they obviously must feel they have given you a deal that was too good and raise the premium at each renewal, accident or not.
Here is another one: my company car does not qualify for a multiple car discount, because it is in the name of the company.
Ok: fair enough.
But when I had an accident with the comapny car, they raised the premium also on the family vehicles, because I was the driver.
How is that for double standards?
Honestly, I could not recommend one single insurance company: they are all out there to get your money and then find excuses and technicalities to give them a reason why they should not pay a claim.
The bigger the company the more crooked.

 

Nationwide Insurance has been okay to me over the years from a cost perspective and good on handling claims.

 

i've had erie insurance on everything i possess for over 30yrs.
statefarm could not even come close on the auto coverage, nor would they agree on a replacement cost for gabriella.
erie never baulked at what i paid for her.

 

My Bias upfront. I have worked for a large Personal Injury Law firm (and will probably work there when I graduate from law school). From my time with the PI law firm, I noticed that Allstate was by far the worst when it came to trying to screw people out of a fair settlement. After that, every company seemed to be about the same. The other factor was who the claims adjuster was that got the claim. Even within companies it varied a lot. There were Allstate adjusters that were good to deal with and fair. There were some from other companies that were not.

So, in that respect I would say that it comes out a wash...

Although if you want to watch an interesting video, I have one for you... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvPW087RiJ8 ...AC 360 about dealing with insurance companies (focus in on Allstate).

 

State Farm: Absolutley great service...great agent Ginger Gray. Price was better than USAA...and I have an agent to handle my problems when they come up! Not a 1-800 number.

Dumped USAA after 35 years. Found out they were ripping me off on my 13 cars/house/liability coverage costs. Also got hit by a USAA driver 4 years ago...you would think having a ton of cars and a house insured with them they would want to settle fairly...not so.

USAA is to big..used to be a great company when I was a young officer...maybe the depression will bring some of these companies around to providing the service they should have been providing...insurance is the next group to take a hit...just watch when the reports come out in March!

 

Chubb is the best for high-value items as they specialize in them. However, I'm not sure they will just insure a car for you. They will insure cars if the homeowners are with them. Not sure if this is different now or not. They will independently insure yachts/etc without houses.

Chubb seems to be no hassle as they are used to dealing with high value items rather than the run of the mill. They definitely aren't the cheapest though.

outside of Chubb, I have also had good success with travelers.

 

I used to use Allstate for years but switched to Safeco, much better rates than what I was paying before.

 

Hargerty. Full road for all my cars w/ flat bed.

 

I actually just have my cars with Chubb, but my houses insured by others. Chubb does have a minimum price point on home insurance, but not cars as far as I know.

I wouldn't feel comfortable having one insurance carrier cover everything I own. Based on my experiences with State Farm, they'll screw you and drop you at any chance they get. If you have everything with them, I wouldn't feel good about the possibility of them dropping all of your coverage over some minor claim that isn't even your fault. I used to be covered with a SF agent who took over his dad's business, who in turn insured my parents for decades. You'd think there would be some loyalty there but like someone else said, they seemed intent on finding ways to drop me for no reason.

-R

 

I had Chubb when i crashed the Ferrari and by the time i got out of the hospital they had already paid off the car.
When i got the letter from the passengers attorney they took care of it as well.
I would highly recommend them.

 

In the interest of fairness I would point out that even it the extreme cases cited here, the adjustors involved seem to be vigorously defending their customers who are being sued for "Neck Pain" etc. I know that we are on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to people suing vs. defending those being sued but I would much rather have the backing of a company that Personal Injury Lawyers found to aggressively defend their clients interests than one who paid whatever the personal injury lawyers asked for. After all, the lawyers actually keep a rather large percentage of whatever money is paid to their client in this type of lawsuit. In the long run, these are the issues that drive future rates for all of us.

Mike

 

Counterpoint:

If insurance companies paid anywhere close to what the value of an injury claim was, personal injury attorneys would not have a line of work.

Allstate is by far the worst of all other insurance compaines for being difficult if you are injured. All insurance companies are fine at paying property damage, but like said earlier, the rubber meets the road when someone gets injured. Have had clients who have been transported to the hospital after an accident and had surgery and Allstate offered less than the medical bills before we got involved. But it is the way they operate.


Allstate uses a computer program that their adjusters input data and it spits out a value for someone's injuries. We have had continuing education seminars on "How to Hammer Allstate" due to their tactics.

As far as the rest of the companies all are bad to deal with if you are injured. State Farm used to be as bad as Allstate but they have gotten better in the last few years. I used Chubb for a long time - have never dealt with an injury claim with Chubb but they seem to be more of a stand up company than the rest in my other dealings.

 

I understand your position and agree that any insurance claim should indemnify or make whole, the injured party when there is clear negligence. There are good and bad adjustors and the same goes for Personal injury lawyers. The only justification that I can see for not fully reimbursing a claimant's medical bills is if that claimant bears partial responsibility for the accident.

In any event, it still sounds like we are talking about defending premium paying clients from others who would like to take everything they own. A far cry from offering inadequate settlements to our own customers.

I have always believed that an injured person who is not at fault in an accident should find out what the at fault person's insurance company thinks is a fair settlement. If they do not agree they should hire a lawyer and pay the lawyer only a percentage of any settlement that actually exceeds what was originally offered.

This would reduce the incentive for lawsuits seeking to overcompensate an injured person and reduce an Insurance company's effort to offer less than the full value of a claim.

By the way, I appreciate the civil tone of this conversation. It sometimes gets out of hand or heated when it really doesn't need to.

Mke

 

I got a big problem with State Farm. If any of you want to hear it....


http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223189

Needless to say once you take a look you will see that I'm probably not there number one fan at the moment. It's no wonder the company has a ton of money.

 

State Farm, they've been great.

 

State Farm 16 for 1 against
Chubb 6
Geico 3
Haggerty 2
Allstate 2 for 2 against
USAA 2
Nationwide 1
Safeco 1
Erie 1

 

I use USAA and if you qualify, they are simply the very best insurer of anything you value. Don't tell them, but I'd pay a 20% higher premium for their service.