On April 6th, I was parked in a private parking lot across the street from the hospital where I worked, waiting for my fiancee' to get off from work when I was hit from behind by an Expedition driven by a State Farm policyholder. The police were called, but no police report could be filed because the accident occurred on private property. We exchanged insurance information, and she drove away.
That night, I contacted the State Farm claim central number listed and was transferred around until I finally encountered a claims representative named Mary who gave me my claim number. She stated that team 1 would be handling my problem. It was too late to call them, so I would have to call back the next day. A team member called me two days later, but I was not at home and unavailable to take the call.
On April 12th, I called the claim central number and spoke to a claims representative named Barbara, who was very helpful and stated that they would investigate my claim and would get back to me in 5-7 days. They would make every attempt over the next 5-7 days to get ahold of their insured policyholder and receive her account of events. If they were unable to get ahold of the policyholder, they would take my account of events as factual and start working on settling my claim.
No one ever called me back, so on April 20th, I called claim central and spoke to a claims representative who was reluctant to give her name. After inquiring as to why I never received a return call, she stated that they were under NO OBLIGATION to call me back, and that they had still not gotten ahold of their insured policyholder. I informed her that the other claims representative told me that if they could not get ahold of the policyholder in 5-7 days, then they would take my account of events as factual. She responded by saying that they had NO OBLIGATION to accept my report as factual, and could in fact take up to 45 days to get the information from their policyholder. Then they could take an additional 45 days to START the investigation of my claim.
When I asked about getting the damage to my car repaired, she informed me that I could get MY INSURANCE company to repair the damage and they would reimburse the insurance company or that I could pay for the damage myself and they would eventually repay my out-of-pocket expense. When I informed her that I only had liablity coverage on my vehicle and could NOT afford to pay out-of-pocket for the damage, she replied that it was in essence "not their problem" and they had no obligation to fix my car in a timely manner.
This claims representative, who I found out was named "Kim", told me that what the other claims representative "Barbara" told me what not true, and that I had basically made up the conversation, as she had no notes in the account to back up my claim.
She was most unhelpful and rude, and ended up hanging up on me. If State Farm was the "good neighbor" they say they are, then they need to converse better within their company and not hire claims representatives with defensive attitudes like I encountered with "Kim."
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