Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests St. Paul Travelers - Horrible Insurance Co.

Just about EVERY liability company is like that about property damage claims. I have a client with a totaled late 70s Datsun Z that ran as a daily driver while yet being in process of being restored, and Farmers faxed me either an ADP or CCC print out of three "similar" cars, for sale over a period of three months, and the print out gave its speech about how the company is out to be thorough and fair in finding comparable vehicles and aren't we wonderful,... and it offered $800. Thorough? Fair? What BS. Between a local Z club, a local Z car show, and the internet, we found 20 LOCAL, RECENT cars that were more "similar" than those found by the company for Farmers, and that company had not found ANY of the cars we found. Our findings indicated client's car had a value of $2,000. Farmers' response to all the cars we'd found was to stick to the prior $800 offer.

Liability insurers KNOW that your recourse stinks and they take advantage of that. Typically, if your car is destroyed, you NEED another one to replace it IMMEDIATELY to get to work, drive the kids, etc etc etc. and suing the liability company's insured will take MONTHS to get to resolution, during which time experience tells them you will turn desperate enough to take their prior crummy offer. Since that works for them 95% of the time and thus saves them bunches of money, why should they give a rip whether that's fair or not? They point at the 95% of times people give up and settle and take chump change as proof of how fair they are being: "If we are so unfair, then why do people accept our offers 95% of the time?"

Your own company will start out playing the same game with you. BUT your recourse with your own company is much different. If you and your own comprehensive/collision insurer do not agree on what your car is worth, your policy probably provides a dispute resolution process like you hire an appraiser, your company hires an appraiser, and if those two do not agree on an outcome, then those two agree on picking a third appraiser. Three local appraisers will VERY LIKELY generate an outcome WAY ABOVE what the silly ADP/CCC print outs show, and that process may take only two weeks instead of half of a year. Odds are very good that the extra expense to you of paying for 1.5 appraisers will be a lot less than the amount by which you beat the SPT offer and you come out better. And you make sure your appraiser has pix and contact info on what was involved with your custom brackets, amps, etc to fully appreciate/factor/value what those mods/additions involved, although you should NOT expect to get every dollar back. (If you paid $20,000 to have a rusty Yugo painted metal flake pink, would the Yugo then be worth $20,000+? No. So if you had special stuff put in your car that cost you $2,000 to purchase and install, but nobody else wants in their cars, the FMV of the car will not be raised $2,000 by your additions.)

I have St. Paul Travelers and I've been satisfied with them on all my claims. They're pursuing a subrogation claim right now against my neighbor's insurance (the good neighbor people) who refused to pay for damage caused when their trampoline blew into my car and house. I've also had reasonable dealings with their adjusters on a professional level - there's plenty of other companies I hate dealing with.

That being said, pretty much all insurance companies are evil.

Scott

The FMV of my car is going to stay the same. The car is beaing settled with one claim and the system equip. is being settled in another. So that means I will be getting 2 checks. One for the car (including car alarm) and one for the system. I am going to try to settle this month long battle tomorrow. The supervisor was offering to give me about $250 for the amps. The brackets are broken and apparently the amps still work but I'm sure custom making metal brackets to match the amplifiers and fit properly will be expensive in itself. They couldn't understand that I wanted to be paid for a rental car from the day after the accident till I got my checks for the settlement. They had offered me a check for my car about 10 days into it. They only wanted to pay for that length of time. I had to state, I could not buy a diff. car with just the money for the car but I was planning on using ALL the money I was entitled to get. Kind of hard to buy a car when you don't have a proper downpayment set up.

They may be a Fortune 500 Co. Great, whoopy doo. That still doesn't mean that they didn't drop the ball repeatedly on my case. Service was horrible for me. If I ever get in another accident (please no! 3 accidents in 3 years is not what I had in mind) if I get any roundabout b/s from the insurance company, I'll be climbing the ladder and talking to a higher up person. Seems to be the only way I get this over with now.

Well, why should an insurance company pay for a trampoline unless they have an umbrella liability policy? It's not a part of their house or car. That's personal liability.

Sounds like State Farm is looking out for its owner/policyholders.

I also don't see how a company is responsible for providing a rental car beyond the car itself being settled. I agree to hold out for a reasonable offer on the sound equipment, but that does not entitle you to a rental car during that time.

Definitely different here. Most windblown debris is on your homeowner's policy unless you can prove negligence, then it is personal liability unless it is a permanent fixture of the home/land, then the liability portion of the homeowner's will cover it (like someone injuring themselves on your property).

You guys should try being on the other side, I have (two) friends that are claims adjusters for a large company, and while sometimes people might get the short end of the stick, there are so many shady people and fraud cases you wouldn't believe.

My employer, an insurance company pays me enough to support my drug habit.

In all seriousness, claims is not a terrible career path, but MazdaSpeed was 100% correct. Outside of those people who do blantant fraud, we just want to get claims off our desk and go home to our families.

when my car was hit and the adjuster came to my house we started talking for 45 min about how it works and cars etc. i remember him telling me if the damage to my car was my fault then my insurance is responsible for the fmv. now if someone else damages my car, their insurance is liable to restoring my car to the exact condition that it was in when it was damaged, meaning if i have a yugo with a 20k paint job, then the other party's insurance is liable for a yugo with a 20k paint job. the adjuster even gave me that example, except he used a 10k paint job. is this not really true? or does it vary from state to state.