Complaint Review: State Farm Mutual

The following is a copy of an email sent to the Washington State Insurance Commissioners office, but includes most of the details of our "rip off".

My wife and I were involved in an automobile accident in June of 2004 on Interstate 90 in which we were struck from behind while we were at a full stop due to an accident that had occurred ahead of us. The vehicle that struck us was later found to be uninsured.

While our insurance company, State Farm Mutual Insurance, felt that the driver was insured, they were very supportive and helpful. As soon as they discovered that they would be liable under the Uninsured Motorist provision of our policy, the story changed.

We originally retained an attorney to pursue the issue so that we would not have to deal with the stress of making a big insurance company treat us fairly, but in late 2005 we decided that it would be make more sense to settle the claim ourselves and my wife contacted the claims department of State Farm in Spokane, WA directly.
She explained that she merely wanted to settle the claim, as our son had been suffering from back pain continuously since the accident and that we wanted to get him to a specialist. She was told that State Farm would be happy to help and that we did not need legal representation, as that just increased the cost for everyone. She was assured that the individual that she was dealing with was a Christian (she had informed him of her faith) and that he would be fair and helpful.

We faxed pertinent information to him, including a copy of our last year's tax returns to indicate a loss of income, and expected to receive a reasonable settlement offer. We were shocked to find that the adjuster offered, over the phone, $500 for any injury to me and $2500 for continuing injury to our son. When my wife contacted the supervisor of the claims department and displayed her outrage, she was told that she had not heard correctly, and that the $500/$2500 offer was well below what they normally would offer in this type of a settlement. She was also told that no representations were made by the adjuster about his religious convictions.

She subsequently called and sent letters to as many representatives as she could find names for with State Farm, including the President and CEO of the company, all to no avail. Everyone that she spoke to told her that what had been represented to her could not have happened.

My wife was severely emotionly damaged by the process that she went through to get SOMEONE to listen to her about how she had been treated by the claims adjuster and his supervisor, but no one, including our State Representative and a contact at the Insurance Commissioner's Office would give her any support. She was told that any dealings with an insurance company was private industry and therefore they could not get involved.

This brings me to a possible solution, not an ongoing tirade of the problem. We are not pursuing communication with the Insurance Commissioners Office to get satisfaction from State Farm Insurance. What we want to accomplish is to bring about a change in insurance regulations that will protect consumers in the future from the type of humiliating and denegrating treatment that my wife experienced.

I am involved in the securities industry, and anytime that I communicate by phone with an investment company I am notified by a recorded voice that my conversation will be recorded for quality assurance reasons. If all conversations with claims representatives of insurance companies were recorded, none of the allegations that the adjuster made would have been in question. Conversations would be held to a higher standard of professionalism and service purely through the process of check, balance and possible review. Is this too much to ask of the $23 Billion insurance market, as quoted by Commissioner Kreidler in his press release concerning the creation of a new anit-fraud unit within the Office of the Insurance Commission to investigate and prosecute insurance fraud. I would ask that the anti-fraud unit be charged with investigating fraud by insurance companies as well as against them.

As a consumer adovacy department within our insurance commissioners office, I appreciate your help and support in effecting change within the industry that is meant to protect us from unexpected financial and physical loss, but I can assure you that with or without the help of the department, my wife and I will continue to pursue any method that we can find to make insurance companies more responsible for the actions, and the deniability of the actions, of their representatives.

Melanie
Pullman, Washington
U.S.A.

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